


The Two Greatest Sins

by corsakitsune (camakitsune)



Series: The Servants of the Gods [4]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Fantasy, Gen, Gods and Goddesses, Immortal Characters, Religious Conflict, Violence, uhhhh how do you tag original work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-05-18 05:26:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 36,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14846667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/camakitsune/pseuds/corsakitsune
Summary: Anadi is a small farming town on a riverbank, where people live simple lives and worship the water god who oversees the region. Typha is a young records keeper for the church. When a visitor from the region's capital seems to be delving into matter that humans are not meant to investigate, a servant of the gods comes to her aid. In the meantime, she hopes she's not next up on the chopping block.





	1. Suspect

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for giving my first multichapter original work a read! This story takes place five years after the prologue of sorts, [The Rule of Gods](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13843464) written by MrsArataka.

Typha’s paper, rough and grainy in comparison to the smooth sheets one could only buy in the luxury shops of the big cities, became no less priceless than the pages she copied from as she filled it with observations about the monster in the forest. As a church employee, she was by no stretch of the imagination ignorant to the many miracles her own god Vatt had performed for her followers over the centuries. But this journal contained matter on a rather different set of subjects: the brief, often tragic encounters with the immense beast that lived downriver, accounts by people in those seafaring regions of giant creatures that seldom rise from the deep, and logical lines scrawled out to connect dots across the two sides.

She was lucky for the timing: that the last time the giant snake from the forest was seen, she was old enough to remember it, that she was old enough now to be taken seriously as a source of information, that the attack on the Anadi Dam was recent enough that the clergy from the capital were still interested in it.

The door of the church’s modestly-sized records department opened. “Hey, Typha? You in here?” Chali’s voice called.

Typha looked up from her desk to see her old friend peeking around the stacks. “I’m back here,” she answered. She returned her pen to its stand and stepped into view of the doorway.

“You must have been in here for hours; I looked all over for you. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, I was just researching some stuff that guy from the capital let me borrow.”

Chali smiled. “Did you get sidetracked looking at all the fascinating rainfall records?” she teased.

“Well, actually. He had some information related to the monster.”

“Oh.” No further specification was needed for Chali, or anyone else living in Anadi for that matter, to know which monster was “the” monster. “Why is he even talking to you about that? I thought I heard someone say he’s here to give some kind of official blessing for the wedding or something.”

Typha already felt a little guilty for mentioning the creature that had, in the past five years, become something of a taboo subject in polite conversation. “He is here for that. He’s probably just really curious, though,” she tried explaining. “I mean, Vatt was there that day and everyone knew it. Of course another cleric is gonna want to know more about it while he’s here.”

“He should talk to Tiya’s dad about it. That sounds like a ‘head of the church’ kind of conversation.”

“But I wanted to talk to him too. And besides, Tiya’s dad is probably busy enough with her wedding anyway.”

Chali folded her arms and thought quietly for a moment. Something about the pause made Typha want to slink back into the stacks and hide. “Just be careful. Safer to know too little than too much with this type of thing, you know.”

Of course, everyone had been raised on some story or another about an arrogant human and his punishment by the gods for seeking forbidden knowledge. However, the visitor from the region’s flagship church must have studied this stuff for years back in the city – he would know where to draw the line. Still, it was easier to reassure Chali before she got too invested in predicting doom and gloom for everyone.

“I won’t do anything dangerous,” Typha reassured. “Everything I’ve been reading has been church approved.”

“Alright,” Chali caved in. “Don’t take too much longer. Your mom will kill you and ask me about it if you miss dinner.”

The sun still shone into the window. It was too easy to lose track of the time in these near-summer days, when the sun’s light persisted late into the evening. Typha noted its misleading height. “I don’t think I’ll be here much longer,” she said.

Chali nodded and bid her goodbye. Typha returned to her work. She finished copying the most immediately interesting material on similarities between the monster and documented sea beasts, and on the way the great wind and sea gods responded to them. There was further, speculative writing ahead, but she closed her task here.

She collected her own work and found a place to store it on the historical items’ shelf. Innocuous and church-approved as it may be, Typha couldn’t name a single resident of Anadi who enjoyed any reminder of the snake that snuck from the forests to destroy their dam and challenge their god. The notes she took tonight were best kept overnight in the church and not in her home.

Once finished at the records archives, she made her way to Tiya’s house. The visitor from the capital was lodged here, as Anadi was not quite large or traversed enough to warrant having an inn. Tiya answered, and she greeted Typha with a smile.

“Hey Tiya. I hope I’m not interrupting dinner or anything.”

“No, no, we’re actually having dinner kind of late. Mr. Hattoka pulled my dad off to talk about something.”

“I bet it must be pretty cool to be getting full recognition from the capital about your wedding.”

“Yeah.” She didn’t sound entirely enthused about this. “It was just really sudden, you know? Having someone show up without warning and having all this official church stuff shoved on me.”

“Oh, I see. Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s weird having that guy here but he doesn’t really bother me much. He mostly just talks to my dad and Otto anyway when he’s not writing.”

“Speaking of that, do you mind grabbing him for me? I wanted to return a book to him.”

“Yeah, I’ll go get him.” She disappeared into the house. The newcomer came to the doorway shortly after.

“Young Typha, it’s good to see you. How can I help you?”

“I just wanted to return your notes to you,” she answered, offering him his journal.

“That was fast. Did you have a chance to read all of it?”

“Most of it, I just didn’t get to copy the last section.”

He glanced back into the house. “I would like you to read it. Let’s chat for a moment.” He turned to someone inside. “We’re just going to have a short stroll. I’ll be right back,” he said before stepping out and shutting the door behind him. A brief gesture with his hand encouraged Typha to walk.

The sun was lower in the sky now, still leaving the humid air warm enough to notice and the surroundings bright enough to look like daytime. Hattoka seemed more suited to this weather than Typha would expect of a city-dweller, looking to be in his middle ages, built as sturdily as any man from the country, even if he spoke with the trained gentler cadence of one taught in the capital schools.

“Young Typha,” he called again, seeming to skim the pages of his mind for the proper starting point. “If anyone had told me that such a young lady from a small-town church would be my primary source of information about my research, I would have expected them to try to sell me a well pump at the bottom of a lake next. I only wish I could have you tell those kids in the colleges a thing or two.”

Typha smiled. She never thought of herself as particularly knowledgeable of insightful about the monster (at least, no more than anyone else in town), but she certainly was nearly as curious as she was frightened of it. Her townspeople’s refusal to talk about it did nothing to help satisfy her curiosity, and for good reason. Blasphemy was a crime no gods treated lightly. Many people felt that to speak too freely about that day was to speak a blemish onto Vatt’s reputation. It was likely that Typha was the first person Hattoka found who would give more than an uncomfortable smile and one-word answers in response to the topic.

“Thank you,” she told him. “I’m just happy to be learning more about it too.”

“No, thank you,” he corrected. “I’m sure this is an unpopular approach among the church, but as the administrators of our god’s word and image, I believe it is the church’s place to be proactive in preventing this kind of even from happening again. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Well, that makes sense. I’m sure if you could stop stuff like that in the future, people would be happier for it.”

“Precisely what I believe. That’s why I’d like you to finish the rest of those notes. As a water god, Vatt has granted us clean, plentiful water anywhere we go in her domain, a miracle in and of itself. But what I gather from her interaction with the great snake is that she may not be as powerful as other gods.”

“Mr. Hattoka!” Typha called. “You can’t say that!”

“It is an honest assessment. Just as some gods are more forgiving or more strict, others are fiercer or… not.” He looked patient, as if waiting for a child to see reason. When Typha offered no response, he resumed. “As we all know, in those regions whose gods are not water gods, the management of natural water sources has had to be taken into the hands of men. The technology is there to do everything Vatt does. It may cross the minds of some people that if she is providing us with something we could provide ourselves, then she should protect us, if we are to continue worshipping her.”

“Are you saying that,” Typha started to say, then shut her mouth before “we shouldn’t” could creep out. Hattoka smiled.

“The idea alone frightens you, I can tell. Which is why I encourage you to read further. I’ve continued writing on the topic precisely because there may be people who are not frightened by that idea. I believe it is up to the church to understand these ideas before laypeople begin to explore them.”

“I don’t know if I can do that kind of work.”

“No one expects their calling. Sleep on it until tomorrow, at least, alright?”

Typha couldn’t word a solid reason to say no, so she nodded meekly instead. He gave her a pleasant wish for a good evening before returning up to the house.

She couldn’t stop wondering what his further writing must have been about if Hattoka was willing to speak this brazenly about Vatt. His explanation for the way he spoke seemed flimsy, and one way or another, she was going to pry out his real intentions.


	2. Pluck

For the people of Vatt’s domain, washing was considered an act of gratitude for the plentiful, clean water their god provided them. Every seven days, the church filled with residents of Anadi, all carrying a bucket to receive water pumped from the church’s wells and blessed by head priest Muir. Dubbed Purification Day, this holy day’s community meetings began with a short teaching from the head priest and adjourned with a group recitation of the cleansing prayer.

This week, Hattoka spoke after Tiya’s father. He sent goodwill from the capital, commended the people of Anadi for their hospitality and their strong work ethic, and announced looking forward to attending the wedding of their priest’s daughter in three days. The words all seemed empty to Typha. After hearing how easily he spoke of rejecting their god, and seeing how smoothly his hand wrote about sea monsters with full admiration, she wondered whether she could believe a single word out of his mouth.

She left with her family when the time came for everyone to wheel their blessed water home on their carts. The water was intended to clean the entrances of homes, the area in most frequent contact with outside impurities, to ward off sickness and bad fortune. Typha’s family, like many others, divided out some of the water for blessing other spaces of the house; her especially superstitious mother always made sure to save some for the cookware to deter foodborne illness. To her credit, no one in the family had ever suffered food poisoning.

Typha expected that Muir and Hattoka would remain at the church to tidy up after the week’s service and to tend to wedding-related matters. Perhaps Hattoka might leave his notes somewhere they wouldn’t get wet. She had an idea.

“Hey, Mom?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“I’ll catch up with you guys at home. I left something in the records room the other day.”

“Be quick,” her father said, water sloshing in their cart behind him. “Everyone takes part today.” He said this last part with a side glance at his wife, deficient in some of the enthusiasm for the rituals that would be women’s work the other six days of the week.

“I will,” she answered, and she separated from her parents and little brothers to return to the church.

She nearly walked past the handwashing basin at the church entrance when she arrived. She reminded herself that shirking customs on Purification Day was already bad enough without a possible blasphemer in the town. After washing and drying her hands, she entered the main worship center, a round room with a podium and only a few wooden chairs at the front reserved for the elderly. No one was there. Hattoka’s satchel was resting on one of the chairs.

She took another glance around the room to verify that he wasn’t there. The opportunity to skim the bag for the other notebook she had seen him carry was the reason she came here in the first place, but now the thought of stealing someone else’s belongings froze her. Even if he was a suspected slanderer of their god, she could still get in a lot of trouble just for stealing. With some coaxing, she managed to nudge her feet into carrying her to the seats.

On the back side of the worship room, there was a door. It led to a storage area, where miscellaneous maintenance items were kept. Beyond that, there was another door leading outside behind the church, where its hand-pumped wells stood.

Typha stepped closer to the door and listened. No shuffling around, no splashing at the handwashing basin. For now, she was in the clear. She looked at the satchel once more, emboldened by the reassurance of being alone, and approached to look inside.

There were two books inside, both thick, and what looked like materials for writing. She pulled out one of the leather-bound books. Its contents were machine-printed, and upon skimming the words, Typha concluded that it was a standard prayer book. She returned it to the satchel and reached for the other.

As she pulled it out, she noticed the slick sound of soapy hands rubbing together on the other side of the door. Fear gripped her once more; urgency set her back into motion. She opened the book a little past the midpoint and found the pages blank. Frustration shot her hand in place to flip to the first quarter of the book, threatening to tear a page with the rough handling.

This destination was more suggestive, revealing notes written in the same handwriting as what she read yesterday. It was dated to a month back. She needed only to see the words “gods,” “snake,” and “sea” to make the rushed conclusion that this was his book of most recent notes.

Reason slowed her. If she stole the book now, Hattoka would notice his bag was lighter, see his journal missing, and immediately suspect her of being the thief. Her eyes darted to her own bag pulling down on her shoulder. Moving almost as immediately as thoughts came, she switched the journal she carried with the new one, closed Hattoka’s bag, and turned to the main exit.

The door past the podium opened. “Typha!” Tiya’s father greeted. She turned to look at him, clinging to a weak hope that she didn’t look as suspicious as she felt. “Were you looking for Brother Hattoka again?”

“Um, no,” she answered, looking around the room. “I had a uh, bracelet. Just a little string bracelet, nothing really fancy, but still. I thought maybe I dropped it in here earlier.”

Muir glanced around as well. “No luck then?”

She shook her head. “Maybe it came off earlier.”

“Well I’ll keep an eye out for it.”

She forced a smile. “Thank you. I better get going. I still need to help my parents wash.”

He lifted a hand to dismiss her. “Absolutely. Health and blessings to all your family.”

Typha escaped the church with Hattoka’s questionable journal and a new sense of disbelief at herself. The trick with trading the journals might buy her some limited time if she was lucky. But what would Hattoka do once he noticed? Would he tell Tiya’s dad? Her dad? Both?

She gripped the journal through her bag as if to verify she hadn’t hallucinated stealing it, nor magically dropped it on her way out of the church. What was in it? What if it was nothing? How would she justify stealing from the esteemed guest from the region’s flagship church if he really only had innocent writings about improving relations between Vatt and her people?

Maybe she should go return it and apologize. Maybe if she was fast enough, she could switch the journals back out before Hattoka returned. Or maybe she could even turn it in to Tiya’s dad and ask him to read it.

She barely played with these ideas before rejecting them. She had gone through the effort and stress of getting hold of this journal, and it was in her possession now. At the very least, she couldn’t give it away without first seeing what was in it for herself.

Her pace quickened. Her parents would be missing her soon, and she would need to help complete Purification Day rituals before she could secure a quiet moment to investigate the stolen goods.


	3. Confirmation

After the Purification Day rituals and lunch, Typha was free to do as she wished, provided she was back to help her mother prepare dinner in the evening. She didn’t want to return to the church to read, anyway.

She went to her room and pulled Hattoka’s journal from its quick hiding spot under her pillow. The sight of it in her own hands gave her the urge to look over her shoulder, lest her parents, or her little brothers, or Vatt herself be quietly spying on her from behind. Once satisfied that no prying eyes were lurking in her room, she returned her attention to the journal. There was no turning back now.

The notebook jumped right into content, lacking the preface and acknowledgments present in that first officially-approved copy. The first page contained an entry about the immense albatross, three times as long as the trade ships that passed under its protective watch, and a sea beast that made an untimely appearance. Hattoka openly referred to the sea giant as a god in this more recent writing. He took particular care in stressing the disinterest the sea monster displayed toward the humans and their ship as it surfaced. Rather, reports he cited seemed to only mention direct interaction between the avian wind god and the sea monster. Hattoka mused over whether giant beasts did not see people or simply did not care about the presence of humans.

More pages revealed more interest about encounters between monsters and gods. Hattoka posed questions about the origins of gods, analyzed the veracity of supposed lost texts, explored the decline of an ancient civilization as a case study of a god being entirely replaced by its people. His most recent writings pertained to Vatt and the giant snake who crushed the dam five years ago. Here, he enumerated what looked to be a list of research topics to pursue while visiting Anadi under the pretense of attending a major church family wedding.

Typha wasn’t sure how long she had been reading by the time she reached the blank pages halfway into the book. She looked out her window to find the sun still high in the sky, and she wondered whether Hattoka noticed yet that his journals had been switched.

She was sure now, between his spoken word the previous evening and his written word before her, that he was looking for a way to replace Vatt with the snake monster as their god. That a plan to do so appeared yet unknown served as meager consolation. She knew, after all, what Hattoka also knew: that Vatt was wary of the monster, and likely for a good reason.

Maybe she should tell Tiya’s dad about this. But that would mean admitting to stealing from Hattoka while he was in the same house to call her out for it. She would need to wait until the two were separated, which could take another day. Did she have that much time before Hattoka would come looking for his journal?

Typha made a frustrated sound and dropped her face in her hands. She wished Chali was here to give her some advice (she would even sit through a lecture on all the bad things that could have happened). It would even help if she was able to get Tiya to vouch for her before Hattoka could influence Muir.

She decided to wait. Tomorrow, she would be sent out to gather and archive the late spring farm data, and that would give her a chance to talk to Muir alone. There was no doubt Hattoka would suspect her of stealing his notebook by then. Maybe he already said something about it. Even then, discussing the contents of said stolen notebook seemed best if he wasn’t around to give his input.

Typha’s mother called her down to help prepare dinner. While they worked, Typha noticed the sky darkening outside, too early for the hour and too quickly to be the sunset.

“You seem down,” her mother commented while she got the stove fired up. “Is something the matter?”

Typha forced a smile. “No, I guess I’m just feeling a little tired today.”

Her mother’s gaze lingered, and she mirrored an uneasy smile, but she didn’t push further. A low growl of thunder rumbled from some distant location outside. Vatt’s people had a saying for this particular kind of sudden weather change.

“Looks like a storm is coming,” Typha’s mother pointed out. “Vatt’s passing through. Maybe she wants to make sure you’re okay too.”

Typha played along more convincingly this time. “On a Purification Day too. Maybe she’s wishing me good luck.” She would have liked to run outside and yell directly to the raincloud-dwelling god. That a blasphemer was in this town, he wishes you ill, come smite him where he stands.

She tried not to look troubled, but she had difficulty keeping a mask of her usual cheerful self on. Dinner was prepared and served to the background noise of pouring rain and irregular thunder. In other regions, where the land was flat and dry and rainfall was unguided by a benevolent spirit, storms were frightening natural events. Here, everyone rested easy as long as no tornado joined the storm and no trees were close enough to their homes to threaten falling on the roof.

Typha’s brothers played a game during dinner, trying to predict the time between flashes of light and shouts of thunder. By the time the meal was over, however, the thunder had quieted, and the calm following the rain almost went unnoticed.

Typha asked to be excused to go out one more time. Her mother either suspected that something was still bothering her or expected that the boys wouldn’t care to join (or both). Either way, she didn’t ask Typha to bring them along.

Clouds had mostly been blown away or emptied to the earth when Typha set out. The storm left a yellow tint in the early evening light that she always found both eerie and familiar. When she was very little, the roads would squelch beneath her feet, but since then, the varied sizes and shapes of cobblestone had been laid to save her shoes from the mud below. The smell of wet earth relieved some of her stress, embracing her senses with as much gentle familiarity as magnolia on the spring air.

Everything around her was still yellow-hued and wet when she reached the swollen riverbank. Cobblestone paths had long given way to dirt-turned-mud roads and soaked grass. The river was noticeably higher than normal despite the brevity of the storm, likely carrying enough runoff from the surrounding areas to flood it.

Typha gathered her skirt to protect it somewhat from the muddy ground as she squatted into a hovering seat. The river had no answers or new ideas for her. She appreciated the reassuring reminder of Vatt’s might anyway. Hands clenching her dress, she closed her eyes, dropped her head, and prayed.

She prayed for protection: both for her god to be protected from malicious schemes, for herself to be protected from her fears becoming reality. She prayed warning to Vatt, hoping she would understand the danger she was in.

She prayed until it left her fingers shaking, emotions roused once again. Her eyes opened to tan hands squeezing fabric. She looked up to the river again. It was still high, still rushing from the north. A whirlpool spun at a point along the midline of the river, like one of the many tiny spirals that persisted in a creek next to a fall in elevation. But this section of river had no rapids, no hard shifts in height that justified the spinning pool. Typha watched it curiously. Surely it hadn’t been there before, had it?

The whirlpool lurched. She flinched, a solid fifty yards away from the stimulus, but no less startled with the distance. The area lurched one, two, three, seven more times. Disruptions grew faster, until they became a continuous writhing, and Typha continued to stare. The jerking, twisting water splashed above the surface, higher and higher into a pillar, appearing more sentient in its action than the fanciest fountain crafted by human engineering.

The pillar, now taller than a person, shot into the air as a single mass. It arced in the air, toward her side of the river, still jerking and spinning as it fell. Typha rose to her feet. Fascination, or incredulity, sent her dashing across grassy mud toward the water’s trajectory, skirt still bunched in her hand. She watched it crash against the ground, break apart, and merge with the surrounding puddles.

The river water, remembering its discrete form, separated from the water coating the ground to spiral up once more. It filled out a shape – a human form, made of arms and legs and head. An enormous fan shape opened behind it. Details formed: hair, fingers, clothing hems. Color added solidity to the image before her. Like paint diffusing through a cup of rinse water, but rather than fading as they spread, colors deepened as if from an infinite brush.

The form in front of her steadied in shape and color. Before her stood a brown-skinned young man, looking barely a few years older than her and dressed in some kind of fine blue fabric. Black curls fell over his shoulders, and he supported the enormous, fanned, eye-spotted tail of some exotic bird on his back. Her prayer must have worked – Vatt must have sent a kisri, one of her messengers, to her aid. Yet Typha could barely accept the reality, even the plausibility, of that happening. Kisri appeared in tales of heroes, kings, and great explorers, not sleepy little farm villages resting quietly on the edges of their respective domains.

The yellow after-storm tint highlighted the young man’s feathers in a golden sheen. He noticed her staring in wonder at his plumage. His face was intimidating enough by virtue of its beauty, but his expression, though amused, looked unkind enough to make Typha subconsciously lean away from him.

“Vatt of Rain and River has heard your prayers. My name is Sarhahn. On behalf of your god, I have been dispatched to punish blasphemy and the pursuit of forbidden knowledge.”

When he spoke, and she found herself struggling to speak, she had no choice but to believe the inhumanly gorgeous man before her was the answer to her prayers in the flesh.


	4. A Job Offer

"A warning is what that was. No doubt about it."

"Have you forgotten where we last met? Muggers nest in the city like rats."

"A mugger who kills without taking valuables?"

Sarhahn listened to the bickering group of humans with no small amount of annoyance. The death of one of their own had flushed them out of the main city and into the shacks in the outskirts. They were far easier to eavesdrop on out here in the outer ring's darkness and the shabbier shelter, at least. Now if only they would take the favor and discuss something a bit meatier.

"Look, the important thing is that no one here trusted Cyril in the first place," a young man, Sarhahn's insider, said. "This is a fortune in disguise."

"It won’t be any fortune when we're rounded up and paraded in front of the whole damn city for the gods to strike down."

Sarhahn allowed himself an amused eye roll at that. Even the most egregious acts of blasphemy were punished with great discretion (on the part of politicians, at least). Public spectacle of those unfortunate people declared enemies of the gods only widened their audiences, and with that, the risk of creating sympathizers.

As for the four people meeting here tonight, Sarhahn had heard more than enough of the beliefs passed between them, heretical by even the most lenient standards, from his informant to justify silencing all of them on their god's behalf. None of his information was firsthand, however. He knew how the harried mind fumbled with details, or abandoned them, or failed to assemble them together in the proper shapes.

“We need to decide what to do about the situation,” Sarhahn’s informant said. “Why don’t we meet half as often and outside the city for a while? If this is some kind of warning, whoever sent it will think we’ve stopped activity after long enough.”

“How long is ‘long enough?’ A month, a year?”

“A month should suffice. We just can’t return to any of our previous locations afterward.”

“We will continue to meet outside the city for two months,” their leader said, and argument was quieted after this decision. “Now, to the purpose of tonight’s meeting.”

Everyone was quiet for a moment. Sarhahn would have like to see why, but gaps in the wood shack were ill-placed for him to do so, and the group of humans huddled too close to see between them.

Finally, from his informant, “Is it authentic?”

“That remains to be proven. It was acquired from a smuggler out of Tocal’s domain, but they’ll sell anything if they think there’s a buyer.”

“Obviously this isn’t an original text since we can read the letters at least,” someone else said. “But it could be a transcription of an authentic piece. We could try to find someone who speaks the language who will cooperate.” Sarhahn’s brow furrowed. He had an idea of what kind of work they might have meant.

“We’ll be looking for a very long time,” their leader said with doubt. “One who can read to begin with, and one willing to do something as dangerous as translate a work like this for people like us.”

“They don’t need to know we’re clergy,” the informant offered, a meager consolation to the hopelessness of the task.

“In any case, are any of you willing to stroll into a Godless sector and ask who wants to commit possible blasphemy?”

Sarhahn had to bite his lip to keep from swearing. The Godless – a term most would consider a slur – had been the hardest group of people for him to infiltrate. They held the deepest distrust of his kind, and for good reason. He still needed a way to find just one who would comply with him, otherwise the resources collected by his informants would be worthless forever.

A distant beckoning, neither through sound nor sight, pulled at his attention. It was the call of a god, one who needed the aid of those who could directly communicate with humans. Over a century’s mandated absence from work had trained him to ignore the metaphysical sense, but when he realized just who was calling, he saw opportunity.

He returned his attention to the band of heretics gathered under the wooden shelter. He couldn't ignore this call. His informant would debrief him on this meeting later anyway, he decided. Besides, they had yet to be named enemies of the wind god they betrayed.

Darkness cloaked him from any spectacularly observant watcher, but he distanced himself from the shack just to be sure. Even in dim surroundings, his plumage could catch enough light to draw the eye.

"Vatt of Rain and River," he whispered, a gentle prayer to tug back at the god's attention.

Somewhere, flying within a rain cloud, Vatt stilled in apprehension.

“It sounds like you need me over there,” he continued.

Vatt did not decisively answer.

“We should talk about it.”

She considered, and considered, and finally gave in to the proposition. There was a passive connection between her and each kisri that served the gods. She accessed that link between herself and Sarhahn.

He felt the power pass into him, just a mote to permit travel. Yet after the years without work, the droplet of godhood was plenty to the parched kisri. He inhaled deeply, took in the quality of the air around him, and then mimicked it. A last glance passed to the shack that hid the humans before his form became vapor. Vatt had given him enough wind to carry himself, a light mist, to her domain to the southeast.

Even at high altitudes, Sarhahn could sense the air become a warm, damp mass. It thickened the mist that was his body into a tight cloud, and it made flight more akin to swimming. Down below, thanks to no small amount of flair Sarhahn chose to display, some of Vatt’s worshipers might have noticed a small cloud shaped like a bird with a great fan of plumage. More studied individuals in the cities would recognize it as a peacock from drawings in textbooks of the bird that lived on the other side of the world.

Sarhahn rode the wind through the humid sky until the borrowed power dwindled to just enough to maintain his form at the edge of the storm system that concealed Vatt. Rainclouds engulfed him as they advanced. He allowed himself to join with the storm. Vatt flowed through the clouds, enormous and streamlined, fins waving in rhythm.

“Vatt. Tell me how I can help you,” Sarhahn requested.

“One subject in the southwestern portions has communicated great fear and concern to me. I believe it was trying to warn me of some kind of danger.”

“As you know, removing dangerous humans is my area of specialty.”

“I trust your work as much as anyone else does. But we still don’t know the consequences of contracting with you.”

“Vatt, it’s been over a hundred years. If I had any ill effects, I’m sure they would have appeared by now. I can’t contract with anyone until you prove me safe for use. I’m sure there are others who need me as well.”

She turned with enough force to stir the clouds pouring water around her. Sarhahn was brushed with them in the wind. She was still unsure.

“And what if something dormant may still harm me if I decide to contract with you?”

“If I seem to be a danger to you at any point, then strike me down.”

She turned again, this time more gently. Her fins swayed. “You’re certain. Very well. I will contract with you, Sarhahn, for the task of discovering and eliminating the threat my follower has addressed to me.”

“I accept your contract, and with it, the covenant of conduct maintained for those accessing your power.”

Vatt continued to carry him in her rain cloud toward the region of her domain where she first sensed the fervent prayer. Sarhahn sensed the more intimate channels of the connection between them open, permitting not only communications and one-way parcels of power, but endowing him with free access to her energy as needed. Time without these open channels, too long for memory to comfort him, too short to forget the feeling, sweetened the supernatural sense of a god’s magic flowing in him.

“You may fall here,” Vatt told him as they floated over her section of the river that cut through the continent. “Find my subject in this town.”

“Of course,” Sarhahn answered. He condensed tighter, until his cloud form became liquid water, and he wrung himself out with the falling rain. Drop by drop, he entered the river, pulling on Vatt’s power to regroup against the constant push of the river flow.

“I expect this task thoroughly completed before I clear you to resume normal work,” Vatt told him, voice filling the river around him.

“Vatt, you think too little of me. I’ve never lost or released a target to this day. It would be foolish to begin now.”

She continued swimming in the storm as it carried her away. “On this, we agree.”


	5. Preliminary Questioning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey thanks for reading so far! In order to maintain consistency in updates and quality of writing, I'll be switching to weekly updates after this, so they'll come Mondays or Tuesdays.

Throughout Typha’s life, her god had been a very permanent, very tangible entity. Vatt was the reason water’s source made no difference to Typha, while people in other regions had to fear the parasites and poisons that accumulated in still water. Vatt made the rain fall without fail every year; she made the word “drought” a theoretical concept to Typha. She had even seen Vatt’s presence in the face of that terrifying attack by the snake monster.

The kisri, on the other hand, were much more fleeting. At once, they were fearsome, half-human-half-wolf creatures, appearing in a child’s story to steal away all the bad boys and girls and to punish kings who refused holy authority. In other tales, they were beautiful people, graceful as swans, bearing divine gifts for heroes and mentoring early explorers. But no one Typha knew had ever seen one. At best, there were rumors of them appearing in cities, but by the time the news reached Anadi, facts were as fanciful as those in any storybook.

Sarhahn reflected truth in both sets of legends. He was an undeniable marvel to behold, a combination of perfection in human form and gravity-defying plumage of a crystalline gleam. At the same time, he pointed a stare at her, like he was watching a mouse strolling out of the pantry, that filled her with something cold and unpleasant.

She remembered that he was awaiting a response from her. Right, he had just introduced himself. “Um. I’m Typha,” she said.

He regarded her a moment longer, and the slight tilt of his head left Typha thinking that perhaps she had said something wrong, or maybe was supposed to say something more eloquent.

“Are you the one who called to Vatt warning of danger?”

“I did,” she answered. “Um, you said you can punish people who seek forbidden knowledge?”

His face showed intrigue atop the disdain persisting in his expression. “That is a special case. Be careful with this accusation.”

She steeled herself against further murmuring and stuttering. “Special like how?”

For the first time, he smiled, and it only intensified Typha’s sense that she had said something wrong – or perhaps now asked something wrong. “Any other crime can be investigated, judged, and punished with minimal disruption to anyone else. Knowledge, on the other hand, is like a virus when it comes to humans. Anyone carrying it is at risk to spread it, whether they intend to or not. The only solution is to eliminate all carriers.”

It took Typha a moment to follow his meaning, but when she did, the memory of the stolen journal in her bedroom struck her with dread. She would have had to see forbidden knowledge herself to know that Hattoka had been writing it. Her best evidence would condemn her right alongside him.

But she still had to do something. This was their god she was trying to protect, the administrator of not just her way of life, but everyone who lived in this domain. If she was going to have to choose between helping Vatt and Hattoka, the choice was clear.

She could make it seem like her accusation was all suspicion, and then hope Hattoka had enough left in his possession to incriminate him before her god’s servant. It was her best bet to expose him while keeping herself from being suspected of wrongdoing, she told herself. She had initially trusted him as a member of the clergy. It wasn’t her fault he gave her that first glance into ideas she wasn’t supposed to read.

“I just have a guess,” she said. “There’s a man here from the capital. He’s said odd things about Vatt, and he writes a lot, like he’s planning something.”

“What has he said?”

She recalled their first meetings, wherein Hattoka feigned a mere professional curiosity over how to deal with the giant snake living downriver. “Well there’s this giant snake monster that lives in the forests to the south.” Sarhahn’s brow furrowed just slightly, and Typha thought he must know about the beast. “The man – his name’s Hattoka – I’ve heard him talk about it like it’s a god. And he’s been trying to compare its strength against Vatt’s, like he thinks a monster can serve us better than our god. Almost like he wants them to fight.” Not true to every single detail, but true enough for now.

Sarhahn looked annoyed. His eyes had wandered skyward as she spoke, and she was certain this time that she said something wrong.

“The snake that lives downriver,” he started, “she is a god. Speak of her with respect.”

“What?” Typha gasped. How? If that creature was a god, why did no one know anything about it? Why didn’t it send its own messengers to speak to them five years ago instead of coming to Vatt’s home and destroying their dam? “It attacked us in our own river before! If it’s a god, where are its worshippers?”

“She doesn’t have any, and she doesn’t want any. She’s a feral god.”

“What’s its name then?”

“Names are for creatures that deal with humans.”

Creatures like gods, Typha quipped back in her mind. That was how she had been taught since she was little. Vatt had her own domain. There were other gods, who sustained their domains in their own way. They needed human worship the same way humans needed their gods’ protection.

“I just don’t understand how it can be a god. Gods help people, and they’re reasonable; they’re not monsters that come out of the forest and–”

Sarhahn launched forward, cutting her off mid-sentence and seizing her upper arm. She reflexively grabbed his arm in return. Her hands tried to pry his grip away, but the cold metal of the broad side of a blade was being pressed to her lips. She froze. Where had that come from?

The kisri was staring at her with a venomous look. She didn’t dare speak. “Call her a monster again,” he challenged, “and I’ll cut out your tongue. Do you understand that?”

Typha remained motionless. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t nod her head with the weapon at her face, so she hummed, “Mm-hm.”

He kept the blade pressed to her skin a moment longer, carving the sensation of the threat into her memory. After seconds that felt like an hour of Sarhahn focusing pure hostility on her, he took the weapon away. Once it was no longer an immediate threat, she stared at it in his hand: a dagger, with no special features that she had the knowledge to discern, but a dagger nonetheless, and one that had been pointed at her. She barely noticed herself backing away and covering her mouth with her hand once freed.

“Now,” Sarhahn resumed, “unknown as it may be in these more ignorant human settlements, I can’t punish a man on Vatt’s behalf because he’s aware that feral gods are gods.”

Typha still stared down at the dagger, waiting to see him conceal it again in hopes of seeing where it came from. He huffed.

“Come on, speak,” he ordered. The weapon became water in his hand, and it spilled to the ground beside him. Typha sounded a dumbfounded gasp behind her hand. “Do you have anything else on this man?” Sarhahn pressed further.

She looked up at him. His expression had transformed from hostile to annoyed. Typha felt her eyes starting to water. Were all of the kisri this cruel? Vatt be praised for keeping these creatures away until they were absolutely needed.

But he was needed now, and she was going to have to be brave if she was going to stop whatever Hattoka was plotting and protect her own hide in the process. She swallowed to ease the pressure in her throat, blinked to fight the tears, and dropped her hand from her face. “I don’t know a lot about other gods,” she said. “I don’t even really know about the… the snake that lives downriver. But you have to believe me, I know Hattoka wants Vatt gone. He’s suggested to me that we should replace her with the snake. You have to stop him.”

Sarhahn made an amused sound. “I’d personally like to see him try to appeal to the god downriver and see for himself how that works out. But, planning to denounce his god without a conversion, seeking to compromise her territory, those things would warrant my intervention. You mentioned his writing. What makes you think it’s anything blasphemous? You’ve read it, I assume?”

“Um, not really,” she lied. “I’m just suspicious. Because of things he’s said.”

Sarhahn hummed. Skeptical, or just thinking? She prayed it was the latter. “Very well. I’ll investigate this man, and I’ll deliver a punishment I deem suitable if I find that he is in fact putting Vatt in danger.”

He had become strangely businesslike, but Typha felt that she preferred this to him seeming irritated to be talking to her in the first place. “So, um, what would a punishment be?” Just in case she got in any trouble too.

“If he’s simply digging into something he shouldn’t, I’ll probably only cut off his hand as a warning.” Typha cringed at his use of “only” for this announcement. Sarhahn was nonplussed. “If his intent is as malicious as you say, or if his findings are too in-depth, he will die.”

She stared in waiting for some break in his disaffected expression and a reassurance that this was a very rare and unlikely event, or maybe even a terrible joke. It was too awful for her to expect anything else – she didn’t really wish for Hattoka to be killed. But no such reassurance came.

“In the meantime, I’ll need to speak to the head of your church,” he requested.

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

It looked like there was going to be no warning Hattoka either.

Typha did as was requested. Sarhahn allowed her to lead the way to Muir’s house, making no attempt to talk to her on the way. Typha wasn’t sure what would provide appropriate conversation with the supernatural creature with a penchant for severing body parts, so she settled for quietly looking over her shoulder every now and then. The first few times, he kept looking straight ahead and pretended not to notice. The fourth or fifth time, she peered out the corner of her eye to find him staring straight at her. She kept her head straight forward until they arrived at the house.

When Tiya opened the door to the two of them, she looked more and more liable to scream the longer she took in Sarhahn’s fanned tail. “Uh, Dad?” she called into the house.


	6. When the Cat's Away (or Busy Receiving Attention)

The news that one of Vatt's representatives had appeared in Anadi had already ecome public knowledge in the time between Typha leaving him to speak to Muir and her heading out for the next day. Which she thought was pretty early, as she had plenty of ground to cover today if she was going to get late spring records from the farmers. Rainfall amounts, crop yields and projections, even fish population data were meticulously recorded and sent to the capital churches. The clergy believed that beyond using prayers and the rare appearances of kisri, they could read Vatt's mood in the state of the region's water. And today was Typha’s first solo trip to gather information.  
  
Unfortunately, Typha's work today was very likely to get delayed if farmers started coming into town to see Sarhahn for themselves. She saw townspeople lined up inside the church when she arrived to collect the data entry forms. They gathered in the main worship room, all seeming nothing less than ecstatic to meet him. Both pairs of the double doors leading into the building and into the worship center had been propped open to permit new arrivals to enter while others exited.   
  
When Typha peeked in, she saw Sarhahn standing to receive people, placed in the spot where Muir's podium usually stood. His arm was outstretched for the visitors to touch his hand. Most people muttered something to him when their turn came, holding his hand as if he were a long-lost friend.   
  
Sarhahn looked entirely uninterested in the entire event. He acknowledged to his visitors, even answered to them, but it was hard to tell whether he was quite looking at or through anybody. Typha wondered what he was thinking. Was he reporting their wishes and prayers directly to Vatt? Did touching him grant good luck, or a blessing, or a deeper connection with their god? Or was he evaluating Vatt's people, silently judging their piety, looking for any sign that might betray more blasphemers unreported by Typha?  
  
As supernaturally handsome as he was, Typha didn't think she wanted to touch him, or be in close quarters with him again at all for that matter.

She saw Tiya and her fiancé Neshob exit the worship center and step into the foyer. Tiya waved to her, and they stopped to talk.

“Hey, Typha,” Tiya greeted. “Were you coming to visit the kisri too?”

“Not really,” Typha answered. “I think I talked to him enough yesterday. I was just coming to get the papers for the farm records.”

“You spoke to him yesterday?” Neshob asked.

“Yeah,” she answered sheepishly. “I uh, saw him appear from the river.”

“That's amazing!” he said. “What was it like? Did he tell you anything special?”

Typha opened her mouth for a moment longer than necessary, said, “Well,” and thought. She realized something, somewhere between her disdain at Neshob calling the event “amazing,” and her most immediate memory being that Sarhahn threatened to cut her tongue out. As awful as it would have been to say out loud, she realized that she was afraid of her own god's servant.

Tiya seemed to pick up on this hesitation. “Hey, I'm sure you have a lot to say and not much time to say it all right now. You can just tell us about it later if you want.”

Typha manged to conceal the deep breath she took upon hearing Tiya's rescue. “Yeah, kind of. Got a lot of work to do today, you know?”

Tiya ignored her fiance's disappointed frown. “It's okay. Clover's ready to ride out to the farms whenever you are.”

“Thanks.” Typha smiled and hoped both reasons for the thanks were clear enough to her friend.

When the two left, she managed to make it to the records room to collect the forms and even exit the church before another holdup arrived, this time in the form of the last person she wanted to see right now.

She would have liked to find somewhere to hide, but Hattoka saw her almost as soon as she saw him. Instead, she froze when his expression hardened into a frown, and he began walking toward her with a bark of “Young Miss Typha!” Both of her hands squeezed the strap of her bag as he approached, but she stayed fixed where she stood. “I need to have a word with you,” he demanded more than requested, hand closing on her shoulder.

“I'm sorry I took your journal!” she yelped under the startling grasp.

“This is far more dire than a stolen journal now, girl.” He tugged as he began to walk to the side of the church building. “Come.”

Typha walked with him, hoping compliance would at least soften his reaction to seeing the thief of his belongings casually walking around town. They stopped once Hattoka was satisfied with the distance between them and the flow of people coming and going from the building.

“What on earth did you do?” he asked.

She shrunk back. “I don't... know,” she answered. “I just... I prayed down by the river, and the kisri appeared out of the water.”

He released her shoulder to run his hand over his graying hair. “Did you read the journal you stole?”

She winced at the reminder, but nodded. “I'm scared,” she admitted. “He got mad at me yesterday because I called the giant snake a monster. He put a dagger up to my face.” She felt her throat tightening when she said it. Hattoka was the first person she told about that threat Sarhahn had made, and he was the first person she was confessing her fear to. Common risk was overriding her distrust of him, even if she remained opposed to the ideas that had gotten them both in jeopardy.

“Okay, settle down,” Hattoka said, softer now. “Listen. You and I are both in danger. That creature is not to be trusted. If he discovers my writing, whatever punishment he decides to serve me will come back to you as well, simply because you read it.”

Her eyes dropped to his feet. She didn't tell Hattoka that she had pretended not to see his writing while telling Sarhahn about him. She was doubting now whether that would make a difference. Maybe Vatt herself already knew what she had done.

“Listen to me, Miss Typha. I'll worry about the theft later. Where are my notes now?”

“I left them at home.”

“Okay. We may have a way to save both our skins. We have to destroy those notes. Once you’ve done that, we both will need give the kisri the best impression that we’re complying. That means giving him any information he asks of us without resistance. But, also bear in mind that he serves Vatt. If she were to notice you trying to destroy those notes, she could tip him off to what you're doing. You must leave Vatt's land so that neither of them can detect it.”

Typha knew Anadi was located on the edge of Vatt's domain, but she wasn't fond of the bordering areas she had as her options. “Where should I go?”

“Take the journal to the forest to the south where the snake god lives.”

She swallowed. “Is that the only way?”

“It's our only chance. It's too risky for both of us if he catches me leaving town with it.” He took notice of her visible discomfort with the idea. “Listen. Entering that forest is not the death sentence people believe it to be. The snake god only punishes those who kill in its forest.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I'll have to stay here. I'll be keeping an eye on the kisri and doing what I can to keep him busy. As long as you keep that journal from getting into his hands, he shouldn't have any evidence against us.”

She couldn't deny that she agreed with everything Hattoka had said about the gravity of the situation. She saw firsthand yesterday evening that Sarhahn held no apprehension about attacking a human for a perceived verbal slight, and he was very clear in stating the sentence for knowing too much. “I guess if it's the only way, I'll have to do it.”

“It's the only solution I can advise. And remember: whatever you do, when you're in that forest, do not kill anything. Not even a gnat. Understood?”

She nodded. “I'm so sorry all of this is happening now,” she apologized once more. “I never meant to cause this much trouble.”

“Be brave,” he told her. “For both our sakes.”

She knew she had to. She parted from him to return home. Before going out to the farms, she needed to collect the journal and all her courage along with it. And some matches.


	7. The Forest

Gathering farm data went smoothly enough, when Typha could get a response at the front door. Several farmers and their families were absent from home, likely having gone into town after hearing from those excitable residents who had a horse and a need to spread the news about Sarhahn's appearance in town. For her first solo data collection, Typha couldn't complain - an all-day job was now shaved of several hours thanks to the homes left empty in their owners' hurry. Although she would need to come back again tomorrow, it also meant she would have time to make that daunting detour Hattoka had instructed her to take.

The farms flanking Anadi did so in an arc to the east, avoiding the river immediately west of town and the forests further south. Typha followed the arc from its northernmost point to yield the shortest trip to those forests once she was finished with her work.

She thanked Erlan for having his tables ready despite her earlier-than-expected arrival. He was the last stop for the day.

“Not a problem, little lady,” he answered with good humor. “You're taking a strange path though, aren't ya? I have a hard time believing you're done with everyone else this soon.”

“A lot of people weren't home today, so I'll have to come back out tomorrow,” Typha explained.

Erlan made a curious sound. “Wonder why that is.”

“Oh, didn't you hear a kisri appeared in town?”

“Really!”

She nodded. “A lot of people went to the church to see him.”

He looked out at his field in thought. “This wedding of Muir's daughter must be something. First a preacher from Vas Kedar, and now a kisri.”

Typha only gave a vague “yeah” in lieu of discussing the actual connection between the two newcomers.

“No church family wedding I've ever seen has brought one of those out here. Not Muir, not his brother or his father. Even after the you-know-what with the dam, the one that showed up went to the capital instead of here. Did you know that?”

She nodded again, knowing fully well that Sarhahn was not called here to extend a blessing, nor to deliver a proclamation from Vatt, but to pass judgment. “I think I remember someone telling me that's how we found out we weren't supposed to rebuild.”

“Yep,” Erlan confirmed. “We had to wait for the head church to give us the final word. Well, maybe I oughta get Mariah and the kids and head up there too. Want to wait for us and go together?”

“No thanks, I already saw him this morning.” Technically true. “Take your time.”

“Well then, enjoy your half a day off.”

“Thanks, have a nice day.” She waved him goodbye and returned to her horse, making sure he was inside before sending Clover on a southwestward trot.

She rejoined with the river, somewhere south of Anadi proper but still within the land area that served as a buffer at the edge of Vatt's territory. In this semi-wild wood, the reality of her task at hand became far more tangible than it had been when she first talked about it with Hattoka. People like Chali's father occasionally came here to collect herbs and wildflowers and sell them dried to the apothecaries in neighboring towns, and so there were still some meager paths leading further into the wood that she could follow.

Eventually those paths ran out, however, and so she followed the river further south. She liked to comfort herself by thinking that the sound of the river rushing to her right was reassurance of her god's protection. But the harsh reminder from five years ago that not all of the river belonged to Vatt came to mind, undermining her courage.

She stopped Clover at a time-worn sign displaying indented letters that looked like they were also painted in, once upon a time. “TURN BACK,” it read. Perhaps to distract herself from the fear, she wondered whether Chali's dad ever wandered this far while gathering herbs. Someone definitely had to be here before to place the sign. And surely the sign was here because there were people to read it, however rare they might have been over the years.

Battling the prowling feeling of only-ness in traveling this far out, Typha dismounted and tied Clover a few paces back, just in case her ride grazing or stepping on some plants counted as killing. She double-checked that the journal and some matches were in her bag, and she stepped forward.

She didn't feel any mysterious evil miasma in the air once she proceeded. Her steps remained slow and small and cautious anyway. There was no telling where the line dividing Vatt's domain and the snake's home was actually drawn. Maybe it was a few feet past the sign, maybe half a mile. She took a glance back at Clover to find her sniffing after her quizzically, but fortunately she was a sensible enough horse to stay put.

Typha kept following the river, constantly reassuring herself that as long as she kept going downriver and returned upriver, that was no way she would magically get herself lost. She kept her eyes down to watch her step, grateful for the sparseness of vegetation in the thick forest shade. The easier it was to avoid stepping on anything alive, the better.

Birdsong went silent, leaving only the river's flow audible in the air. She hoped with everything in her that it was just a hawk passing through and kept pushing forward. Nothing was jumping out at her, nor had she suddenly dropped dead. In the near silence, she heard buzzing next to her head.

Typha looked up from the ground to find a mosquito circling in the air beside her, measuring a landing spot for itself on her skin. She swatted at it reflexively, then tried to ease her immediately resulting fear with the knowledge that a simple wave of the hand probably wouldn't kill it. Giving an unwelcome confirmation, it was back, now trying to find a place on her exposed hand.

She waved again, more fearfully, this time feeling her heart beating faster. If she had been able to tell herself before she wasn't afraid, she had run out of all pretense of that lie. Mosquitoes borne by water outside of Vatt's purification carried parasites, and right now, only the scariest symptoms came to mind. She tried to remember, were flesh-eating worms a risk from mosquitoes, or only from drinking bad water? How long did it take for yellow fever to kill a person again?

Trees around her began to groan. Typha looked up, more than half expecting the trees of this cursed forest to suddenly fall down to crush her. If only the source of the groaning was merely that.

Slithering in the trees above was the belly of a giant snake, plenty wide enough to swallow her house. Typha knew immediately that she had seen this snake before, only this time, no one would come to challenge it if she angered it.

She was too frozen to scream or run. The bands of the snake's belly moved its body in a path perpendicular to Typha's, as if the monster – not a monster, Sarhahn had told her – was simply passing through. Typha had a stronger inclination to believe that it was very aware of her presence, and to feel like it was daring her to kill the insect hovering about her.

Forget the mosquito, she was obviously far enough into the forest to be outside of Sarhahn and Vatt's detection. She reached for the journal and box of matches in her bag. She just had to burn the front half of the pages and drop it here. Her shaking hands first caught her attention after she tucked the journal under her arm and struggled to pull a match out of the box without dumping all of the contents onto the ground.

Two strikes lit the match. She was almost there. One hand grasped at both the match and the box, while the other retrieved the journal from under her arm. She flipped the journal open easily enough with one hand and held the match to the paper.

The mosquito decided that then was the time to remind her of its presence. It spiraled down toward her hand – and the match in it. She jerked away from its path, but it came careening toward the fire again as soon as she stilled. Panic overtook her fear-agitated muscles, and in her second attempt to twist out of the way, she dropped the book, match, and matchbox.

She snatched up the matchbox, and as she bent down, realized the match was still lit. In a hurry, she tugged her skirt up and stomped out the fire. She was grateful her reflexes still worked at least. If the rule to surviving here was “don't kill anything,” the last thing she needed was to start a forest fire.

Her stomping, however, disturbed another resident of the forest, one she didn't even see until it flashed its pink-white mouth at her in warning. She jumped back with a cry at the sight of the snake, a dark, miniature version of the one passing overhead, coiled next to the journal she meant to burn. The corners of her vision pulsed with her wild heartbeat. There was no pain, she recognized, no blood. The snake hadn't bitten her.

It closed its mouth. Typha may not have been an expert at identification, but the sheathed fangs in its mouth were indicative enough that she didn't want to upset it any more. It moved. She jumped again. It still hadn't bitten her.

It was on top of the journal now.

But it hadn't bitten her.

As long as she was still unscathed, there was no hurry, and she could just wait for the snake to leave.

Or so she thought, for about the first minute of tortuous pressure from both the normal, flesh-and-blood snake in front of her and the enormous bulletproof snake still slithering above her. In that time, she accomplished only a staring match with the animal, and standing still for that time allowed her body to calm down. Once she had a handle on her breathing, this freed the opportunity for her to think. She could grab a stick and move the snake, or at the very least, coax it into giving up its spot.

Typha looked up. She was sure the giant snake was watching her.

“I'm not going to hurt it,” she said to it, or herself, or both. “Just moving it out the way.”

She found a stick nearby that seemed wide enough to hold the snake. She retrieved it and returned to her target. Her eyes searched for a good spot to try to nudge the stick under the snake, but looking at the reptile's body only revealed to her how much less happy it was to see her brandishing the stick. It swelled and deflated in threatening rhythm, making her want to give up right then and there.

The sooner she finished the job here, the sooner she could leave. It's more scared of you than you are of it, she told herself. The saying was rarely compelling to her whenever she heard it said of wasps, spiders, and the occasional shouting cicada as a child. For now, however, she managed to convince herself that as long as she didn't hurt the snake, it would be happy to leave her alone and go about its day.

She extended the stick toward an outward bend of its coiled body. It struck at the stick as soon as it made contact. The little nerve she had gathered fell out of her hands just as soon as her makeshift tool did. The snake scolded her once more with a hiss and another flash of its mouth. For a moment, she stared at its movable fangs and that creepy hole its tongue came out of.

And then she turned around and walked away, legs moving almost as rapidly as her mind rationalized her last-second cowardice. The journal was outside of Vatt's domain, and it wasn't like finding random items in the woods was very likely to begin with unless you knew exactly what to look for and where to look. She wasn't the type to argue with a snake on a good day, either. Keeping up the attempt would only end up in one or both of them getting hurt, and all possibilities included her getting hurt in the end.

More now than ever before, she sympathized with Vatt’s decision not to pick a fight with the warden of this forest.

The adrenaline rush made the trek back to Clover a blur. When she returned to the horse, she moved with jittery urgency to untether and mount her as soon as possible and leave this whole mess behind. She didn't owe Hattoka the details of this trip, she decided with some bitterness. He was safe and sound in Anadi while she risked her neck coming all the way out here. If he wanted to be absolutely sure his journal was destroyed, he should have done it himself.


	8. Confession

“So, will you be arranging an offering meal?”

The kisri sounded so casual (and as a result, expectant) when he asked Tiya’s dad the question about midday. He had spoken with Muir the night before to discuss handling his public appearance, so why didn’t he mention anything about food offerings then? The whole town would have jumped at the opportunity to shower him with food all morning.

Tiya tried not the think too hard about it. Maybe he was just a self-centered personality, and maybe that was why Typha didn’t seem too excited to talk about meeting him. He was a god’s servant, after all. Her brother Otto had described the type after returning from travels with their dad. Head priests in other towns who were as cordial and welcoming as could be, surrounded by veteran records-keepers and junior priests who made their own presence a challenge of others’ personal strength to compensate for their lower ranks.

She suppressed her bitterness as best as she could. As similar as he might have been to church and government support staff, he was still a servant of her god, and thinking too much animosity toward him could be harmful in the long run. As long as he didn’t plan on interrupting her wedding rehearsal tomorrow, she could deal with any unpleasant personality features for today.

 _Thank you Vatt, for permitting us to clean our food,_ she thought pointedly, rinsing the picked greens in a stock pot with enough force to splash the occasional few drops at her own face.

Tiya’s family, like everyone else in Anadi, grew vegetables and raised some animals, but they didn’t quite have what would be called a farm. Accommodating Brother Hattoka at the same time as preparing for her wedding had already stretched them. Now making room for a kisri sent them scrambling to buy whatever the nearest few farmers had ready to pick.

They had a couple of domesticated boar, but they were too big to serve without a day’s advance preparation, and one of them was intended for the wedding day anyway. They had plenty of chickens, but taking one look at the new visitor made Tiya’s mother worry that he would object to being served fowl or eggs. So they managed to find a neighbor with a piglet to spare for their main course, which cost them a prettier penny than the vegetables combined.

A knock at the door took her attention. “Tiya, could you answer that?” her mother requested.

“Yeah, I’ll be right back,” she answered. She left the countertop and the large pot of greens on it to open the front door. “Oh, hey,” she greeted Typha.

“Hi,” Typha greeted back. "Just bringing Clover back.”

Clover technically belonged to the church, but for the purpose of having her where she was most easily cared for, she with Tiya’s family along with their own horse. She was roaming in front of the house untethered when Tiya opened the door.

“Thanks for bringing her back,” Tiya said. “I’ll put her up.”

“I’ll come with you,” Typha volunteered, already walking to take the horse’s reins.

They walked together to the roughly-fenced area of the property where Clover and the family horse were kept. “Where’s your dad, by the way?” Typha asked en route.

“He took Otto to help move our dining table to the church.” She observed Typha’s puzzled face before continuing. “We’re giving the kisri dinner as a food offering. But he won’t come into the house, so we’re taking everything to the church.”

Typha shook her head. “That sounds like such a hassle.”

Tiya shot her an expression she hoped conveyed, “You don’t know the half of it.” She received a sympathetic look in return. “I don’t even know if we would have been able to fit him inside the house anyway. We’d probably have to move in the end anyway.”

Typha sighed. “Good luck.”

“Yeah, thanks.” She remembered Typha’s odd reaction earlier when Neshob asked her about the kisri. She wanted to ask if this situation was any indication of whatever seemed to be the matter with him, whether that “Good luck” contained a warning she wasn’t quite picking up on. She decided not to ask, and so the two were quiet until Clover was safely returned to the pasture.

“Hey, Tiya?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I tell you something?”

“Yeah.” It was the kind of incredibly vague question that could only precede something serious. If it had something to do with the kisri, it must have been hard to talk to anyone else about it, especially after seeing how everyone gushed with adoration bordering on worship during his visits today. Tiya wanted nothing but to be a good friend to Typha, as they had always been, and so she was more than happy to lend her ear.

“You can’t tell anyone about this,” Typha added urgently.

“I won’t. What is it?”

Typha looked past her and sighed again. “I don’t really know for sure. I’m just saying what I think.” She was already breaking into little fits of rapid blinking, as if tears were well on their way. Tiya could immediately tell that something was wrong.

“But I think Mr. Hattoka was writing some stuff he shouldn’t have. About Vatt, and the snake.” She paused. Tiya wanted to give her a hug, but she needed to let her finish first. “And I think I could be in trouble too because I saw it. So I took his journal out to the forest to get rid of it, but… I dropped it, and there was a snake there on the ground, and I just got scared and left it. I never would have even looked at it if I thought it was something I wasn’t supposed to see.”

“Something you weren’t supposed to see, like what?” Tiya asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t wanna say.” Her face was contorting into a frown now, betraying her battle against crying.

“Hey.” Tiya gave her friend the hug she was long overdue. “It’ll be okay. The kisri is here to find out about it, isn’t he?”

Typha gave a muffled “Mm-hm” against Tiya’s shoulder.

“Then if Brother Hattoka was doing something wrong, he’ll get what’s coming to him. But Vatt wouldn’t let you get punished for what he did, okay?”

She didn’t answer.

“Hey, I mean it. That kisri – Sarahan, or whatever his name is – he seems like a real jerk. I hate that whatever he said to you before has you this upset. But Vatt really cares about us, and he serves her. He can’t do anything she wouldn’t want him to do. Okay?”

Typha pulled away and nodded, eyes fully reddened by now.

“You’re going to be okay.”

“I know, I know.” She took a deep breath and released it slowly. “I’m okay.”

Tiya rubbed her shoulder. “I won’t tell anyone you said anything to me about it, alright? He can pass his judgment on Hattoka and leave and we’ll never have to see him again.”

Typha nodded. “I hope.” She gave a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, but she was trying. “Thank you.”

Tiya sent her home with one more hug. When she returned to her house, her frustration with the kisri redoubled into anger. How dare he try to scare Typha on some ridiculous ego trip? All while quietly letting the town think he was here to bless Tiya’s wedding, at that. He had barely been here a full day and he already had her wishing he was gone.

After Tiya returned to her house and when all of the cooking was done, her mother managed to draft Brother Hattoka into helping carry food and dishes, on the basis that he was a man of the church, and taking part in orchestrating this offering dinner was a privilege and a responsibility. With his help, they were able to move everything in one trip. While Tiya helped set the table and plate the food, the kisri (Sarhahn, she was going to have to remember for the duration of the meal) stood back and watched. She would have liked to glare at him the entire time, but the risk of getting caught glowering at him by either of her parents wasn’t worth it. Besides, she found that it was somehow difficult to look directly at him.

Sarhahn ended up being seated on one end of the table, on a stool, because there was no seating him in a proper chair. He was placed like a gaudy festival decoration across from Muir, who was flanked by Tiya’s mother Dara on one side and Otto on the other. Tiya sat between Dara and Sarhahn, and Brother Hattoka was on the kisri’s other side.

They each cupped their hands loosely in the formal prayer gesture to say a short grace. All except for Sarhahn, who kept his hands folded in his lap. Tiya noticed this and wondered whether he was exempt from prayer or just too full of himself to show respect to their god.

“I hope the food is to your liking,” Muir said to Sarhahn as he began to take his utensils.

“Your plentiful offering is noted and appreciated,” he answered before taking a bite.

“You have my wife and daughter to thank for preparing it.”

Sarhahn gave a noncommittal hum and a glance to each of the women. They each smiled and nodded in turn. “So. Hattoka, you said your name was?”

“That’s correct,” the addressed man answered.

“That’s a very eastern name.”

“That it is. My family is from the southeastern stretches.”

“But you’re from Vas Kedar?”

“Well. We hail from the southeast, but when I was five, we gathered up all we had and moved to the capital. My mother enrolled me in their schools, and I do believe it’s served me well to get me employed with the church there.”

“Isn’t that nice?”

Hattoka proceeded to describe his position and role in his church. The conversation was boring, but Tiya could put up with it. As long as she kept her head down and looked pleasant, the kisri would keep Hattoka dithering on about himself as part of whatever secret interrogation he was conducting.

Conversation paused as Sarhahn took a bite of food. Dara eyed his plate anxiously, seemingly readying herself to spring into action from halfway across the table at the first sign of him running out of any food item. Otto looked like he wanted to ask something, or at least say something to effect the proper image of a priest’s son and eldest child. Muir was more guarded, but Tiya knew by now that her father’s watchful silence was his only way of suppressing his nerves when he didn’t have a graceful oration to hide them with.

Sarhahn seemed to not notice, or more plausibly, not care, about the nervous energy pervading the worship center as he ate. In fact, Tiya thought she detected some hint of satisfaction as he started to speak again. He addressed Hattoka when he decided it would be appropriate to ask, “Then were you in office during the event that happened here five years ago?”


	9. Reconvening

Talking to Tiya helped ease Typha’s nerves, even if she felt that she couldn’t tell her friend what she had seen and what she suspected of Hattoka. Sarhahn was intimidating and didn’t seem to think much of humans, but it was still as Tiya said – he worked under Vatt, and Vatt wouldn’t turn her back on her followers.

She was going to have to work with him if she wanted him to be convinced that she wasn’t hiding anything from him as well. To this end, she made a stop by the church to find him. She passed by Tiya’s dad and Hattoka along the way, but it appeared that they were all business on the way back to the house, and they only spared the time for a brief “Good afternoon” and a knowing smile, respectively. She only hoped now that Sarhahn didn’t have some way to detect guilt, or else making that trip out to the snake monster’s forest would have been entirely for naught.

Some of her resolve fizzled at the idea.

She pressed on to the church anyway. When she arrived, she found the front double doors still propped open. Upon entering and washing her hands, she noticed that she could see into the worship center from the wash basin due to those doors being held open as well. As Tiya had said, her family’s dining table was placed within. Closer to the door, one of the farm families was in there talking to Sarhahn. Typha waited outside for them to finish.

Sarhahn noticed her standing outside, and he said something to cut the conversation short. His visitors nodded in turn, all smiling in excitement, before leaning and turning those smiles to Typha on the way out.

“Sorry you missed us,” Abbi, the lady of the house, said.

“It’s okay, I’ll be back tomorrow,” Typha responded. “Have a good night.”

They continued out of the church. Typha looked into the worship center again. Sarhahn was standing in wait for her to come in, eyes directly on her. She swallowed and stepped forward.

“Um, hi again,” she said as she crossed the threshold.

“Typha,” he acknowledged. Despite his frightening presence, Typha found herself somehow flattered to know that he remembered her name. “You didn’t stop by earlier. I need you to do something tonight.”

Typha stiffened at the thought of him requiring her in particular to do anything. Only a few seconds later did she notice the possible admonishment that came first, as if she was his designated errand-girl while he was here, and this fact was too obvious to warrant mentioning it to her.

“I’ll need you to search Hattoka’s belongings and bring me any suspicious documentation,” he continued without waiting for her to confirm that she would do what he needed.

Her brow furrowed. “I can’t do that.”

Sarhahn narrowed his eyes, looking more perplexed than angry. “What do you mean you can’t do that? You say he writes, correct? Since I can’t condemn a man on accusation alone, I need you to provide evidence of some kind.”

“I can’t just go through someone else’s stuff while he’s right there.”

“Then search while he’s away,” he said, palm turning upward as he spoke, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“What?”

He stood in place, still holding up his hand in some combination of confusion and frustration. Finally, he answered, “I’m going to need you to be more specific if you expect me to explain something.”

“Can you do it? You’re a kisri, I can’t see him trying to stop you or anything.”

“No.”

Typha spread her arms in her own bout of puzzlement. “No?”

“I will not enter the house.”

She dropped her arms and remained quiet a moment longer. She recalled Tiya mentioning that Sarhahn refused to enter the house. When it became clear that Sarhahn had no intention to explain further, she covered her face with her hand. What had he even done all day, shake hands and pretend to care about people’s problems?

He took a step closer. “Look at me, Typha,” he commanded.

She did so, and she found herself having to look the slightest bit upward to establish eye contact, which by itself was an act she wasn’t sure she should keep attempting. It was too akin to insisting on carrying a hot iron pot with bare hands just because she survived the burn in the past.

But by Vatt’s glory, his stare burned so good.

“What I need you to do is in the interest of your god. If you truly care for Vatt, you’ll do whatever it takes to help her.”

She swallowed again. Looking too intently was a mistake after all. “But,” she said, almost too meekly to be heard, “what if I get caught?”

“Getting into the house while the others are away should be easy enough. None of you humans out in these parts ever lock your doors, do you?”

“They probably don’t,” she admitted.

“Then go in, browse Hattoka’s personal effects for anything suspect, and bring them to me. And by the way, remember not to expose yourself to anything dangerous. Best to blindly grab any writing you find.”

“I’m really not sure I can do something like that.”

“You must.” He was neither plaintive nor tender, but rather said it with the same emotion her mother expressed when she grew tired of asking Typha to do housework. He folded his arms behind him, tucking them neatly between his back and his raised tail feathers. “Vatt needs you, and by extension, I need you to get any and all of Hattoka’s information.”

Typha hugged her arms to her chest. She wished she had just gone straight home instead of coming to talk to him. Every time he mentioned Vatt, a little more guilt gnawed at her for helping Hattoka and hiding his journal for him. Sarhahn was here because Vatt called him to action, and Vatt had summoned him because of Typha’s prayer. Hattoka was still the same treacherous man who implied that their god wasn’t providing them with enough blessing to be worthy of worship, and Typha’s need to avoid being lumped in with his blasphemy didn’t change that fact.

“Forget it,” he suddenly said. “I’ll ask a member of the house to do it. As much as I prefer to keep a minimum of people privy to my work, I see I’m getting nowhere with you on this.”

“Wait.” She knew the risk she was already taking on by dealing with Sarhahn. “If someone looks through Hattoka’s stuff, and he has anything that’s bad to read, then they might get punished right next to him, right?”

“That’s a possibility. Especially for anyone failing to understand the danger involved in the simple act of reading. I must punish all humans who I can reasonably confirm to have been exposed to forbidden knowledge. Vatt herself would expect no less.”

All of the consolation Typha had when she arrived had been well crushed by now. She remembered Tiya’s certainty that Vatt would stop Sarhahn from hurting her. Perhaps Tiya, or whoever he asked, wouldn’t take his warnings seriously. “I’ll do it,” she murmured.

“What was that?”

“I said I’ll do it.”

“What’s this? A sudden change of heart?” he asked, smug. She ignored it.

“You said I just need to grab everything he wrote and bring it to you, right? I can do it. I don’t want anyone to see anything that could get them in trouble.”

“Then that’s precisely what you need to do.”

“Fine. Just don’t get anyone involved in going through Hattoka’s writing if I do this.”

“Do a satisfactory job, and I’ll have no reason to.”

It wasn’t an impossible task, but it was still dangerous. Typha took a breath to steel herself against the fear. “I’ll do what you told me to do. If there’s anything else, you should tell me.”

“No, no, just a little suggestion. After your dinner should be a good time. The house should still be empty then.”

“Why?” she asked. “What are you going to do to them?”

“They’re making me a food offering,” he answered with a smile. “And I don’t intend to make this a quick meal.”

* * *

Typha’s parents gave her a piece of their mind over dinner.

“Would it have killed you to tell us there was a kisri in town before you rode out to the farms?” her mother asked, to the effect of the two youngest children snickering at Typha’s expense.

“I’m sorry,” she answered with a glance to her brothers’ poorly masked smirks.

“Honestly, could you imagine if we had been the only ones to miss him today? And how would that look for the wedding?”

Typha didn’t know exactly how “missed the visitation with a kisri who suddenly appeared” would translate in wedding-etiquette-ese, but she knew better than to try to clarify the matter. She took a spoon of stew without another word.

“Honestly!” her mother repeated. “What if that was your wedding?”

She wouldn’t want Sarhahn showing his (perfect) face anywhere near town on her wedding day, first of all. Again, she didn’t want to correct her mother, so she nodded as apologetically as she could manage and sipped her water.

“Typha,” her dad called, the effort to remain calm audible in his voice. “I know it probably didn’t seem like a big deal to you at the time, but you know the kisri have direct contact with Vatt. Everybody should take the time to talk to them if they appear.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry,” she said. Her mother sighed next to her and closed her eyes. “What did you say to him?” Typha asked.

“We just told him we want this town and our family to stay blessed,” her father answered. “For now, that’s all we need.”

“I asked for Vatt to help send a husband to Chali,” her mother added.

Typha’s eyes widened in secondhand embarrassment for her friend. “Mom, really?”

“Yes, really,” she answered without missing a beat. “She’s what, twenty and she still doesn’t even have a potential husband in line?”

“Maybe she does and she just doesn’t want to talk about it yet, I don’t know.”

“She’s wasting her time for nothing then. She won’t be young forever.” She ate a spoonful of stew while Typha hid her face in her hands. “You need to be looking too. Tiya’s making good time.”

“I’ll do my best, mom.”

“How’s that Hattoka man from the capital? He’s one of your bookish types, I bet.”

No. Absolutely not this conversation. “I don’t even know him!” Typha answered, a weak deterrent if any at all to her mother’s play at matchmaking.

“Ooh, Typha’s got a boyfriend,” Baltos, the oldest of the boys commented, making Alvin burst into giggles.

“I’m sure you could get to know him,” their mother continued, willfully oblivious to their antics.

“He’s old!” Typha was growing more desperate by the moment. She would have preferred getting chewed out for her failure to send them to Sarhahn over this. The thought reminded her that she still had business with him. She pretended not to hear her mother’s comment about Hattoka’s ability to make grandchildren.

“Um, on another note,” she started, hoping the transition was enough to permit a change of topic, “I never did stop to talk to the kisri today.”

All the amusement in her mother’ face vanished. “Typha. I thought you said you saw him when you went to get the records forms or whatever.”

“Well, I saw him, but I didn’t go talk to him then.”

“Goodness gracious, what am I going to do with you, child?” Typha’s father gave a strained sigh next to his wife, probably thinking by now that his daughter was making it very difficult to be on her side in this situation.

“Do you think he’d still be there after dinner?” Typha pressed on.

The boys watched quietly to see how much more trouble their sister was going to be in this time. Their mother whispered disbelieving complaints to herself. Their father took a more solution-based approach. “I don’t know if he’ll still be there, but you have no excuse not to check.”

“And for Vatt’s sake, apologize when you get there,” Typha’s mother added impatiently.

“I will,” Typha said to them both. At least her excuse to rush out right after dinner had worked.


	10. Polite Conversation

_“Then were you in office during the event that happened here five years ago?”_

Tiya’s eyes went wide when Sarhahn said it. She kept her head lowered toward her plate, and her fork pushed her slice of boar meat faux-busily. Otto didn’t handle the topic quite as well, and he started to choke on his water mid-sip.

“What event do you mean?” Hattoka asked, with innocence and obliviousness even Tiya could tell was fake.

“I was hoping you could tell me,” Sarhahn answered. “From what I heard today, you’ve had some trouble with the snake god. That’s the extent of what I know.”

Tiya’s eyebrows lifted as far as her face would allow. She tilted her head up just enough to permit her darting eyes to take in her surroundings. Her mother was steadily drinking her water to keep herself silent. Otto was still trying to stop coughing. Their father stared straight at the kisri, masking his response. Hattoka hadn’t flinched.

“There was a dam being built on the river here. The snake appeared and destroyed it. Vatt told us not to rebuild, and so we didn’t.” He was quite easily handling what Tiya had suspected and Sarhahn confirmed in an egregiously casual manner: the giant snake from the forest was on the level of a god; more than that, it _was_ a god.

“I’m not surprised the snake god didn’t take kindly to that.”

“We prefer not to speak of that _creature_ that attacked us more than we must,” Muir interjected.

If the situation wasn’t so mortifying to Tiya, it would have been funny. Unasked questions about the snake seemed to creep up in her mind against her will as they wished over the years. She always erred away from the side of blasphemy when it came to the terrifying and mysterious creature, yet the kisri called it a god as if the knowledge were as common as the fact that the sky is blue. If nothing else, she felt validated for her hidden disdain for Sarhahn upon hearing the tone her father took with him.

Sarhahn, meanwhile, met Muir’s hard stare, an act that was an affront by pure virtue of his pointedly disaffected expression. She admitted to herself that he was unmistakably handsome, and if he had looked at her like that, she might have gone running for something to hide behind. He hadn’t looked at her, however, and instead, she wanted to jump to her father’s side.

Then the moment was over, and he was addressing Hattoka again. “Who sent Vatt’s decision?”

“Maida. Rather tall, elderly-looking kisri. She was captivating despite the age she suggested.”

He gave a curt nod. “I know Maida.”

Tiya couldn’t stop whatever was possessing her to speak. Maybe she was emboldened by her dad’s response a moment ago, but before she realized what she was doing, she asked, “Shouldn’t you know all about the snake monster attacking us already?”

Sarhahn cast a glare at her now, this one far more openly hostile than the one he had pointed at her father. Her mother gave her a light kick under the table. Tiya barely noticed it. Whatever captivating appearance Brother Hattoka was just mentioning – this must have been the same thing. Earlier, she felt like she couldn’t look directly at him, but now that she had looked, she couldn’t stop. It would have been easier to be defiant under his eye if he wasn’t so uncannily beautiful. But he was, and the soft, lantern-augmented evening light and his long lashes framing his eyes made this no less true. The gaze Tiya returned to him must have been more like that of a mouse in the instant it looked up and saw an eagle’s talons seizing it.

“She is a god,” he corrected. “And I wasn’t around.” He turned his body toward her, fully disengaging from conversation with Hattoka. “You, on the other hand, must have had a front row view of the event. Perhaps I should be asking your account of what happened.”

Tiya’s lips shut tight, and she could feel everyone’s attention on her now. She knew her place in this kind of slippery situation. Be it for a farmer stumped by suboptimal rain amounts or for an immortal watchdog, her job as a member of the head priest’s family was to extend her father’s work to uplift Vatt’s name any time her actions came into conversation.

“It’s as Brother Hattoka said,” she finally answered. “The only thing I can add is that when the beast came to destroy our dam, Vatt protected us, and then she let it go. Her mercy extends beyond just her worshippers.”

She knew it was an answer that her father would be proud to hear her give, but Sarhahn was far less impressed. He made a mocking smile, and repeated, “Her mercy extends beyond just her worshippers.” His smile quickly morphed from taunting to smug. “Isn’t that a cute little rehearsed answer? And I’m supposed to believe that’s what you really think?”

Why did the interrogation get passed to her? She supposed she only had herself to blame for pulling the cat’s tail. “I can only believe what makes sense to me. I never really studied holy writing very closely; maybe my dad can give a better answer–”

“I’m not asking him,” he interrupted, “I’m asking you. You think mercy is was allowed the snake god to leave unscathed? Or are you simply wise enough to hide that you found Vatt negligent in allowing the snake god to go free?”

“That’s enough!” Tiya’s father cut in once more.

“I _think_ Vatt did the best she could do to keep us out of any more danger,” Tiya answered. He may have been ordered to find out whether Hattoka was saying or writing anything blasphemous, but Tiya was not going to have her own faith tested and toyed with.

“If I may,” Hattoka offered, “the forest snake was very aggressive in maintaining the borders of its territory in times gone by. Perhaps once Vatt saw that the people of Anadi were unharmed, she thought it best to not escalate the conflict.”

The explanation seemed to slowly snap Sarhahn out of his attempt to snare Tiya in her own words. He stopped talking long enough to return his attention to his plate. Everyone pretended not to watch him in the uncomfortable silence that fell over the worship room as he took a slow bite of his food. He looked frustrated. Tiya wondered who exactly he was frustrated with.

Dara decided that too much of his plate was visible (or perhaps that the silence was too unbearable) and began to carve more slices off the roast. “Boar?” she asked, already lifting up the slices and holding them in offering.

Sarhahn set his utensils on the table, propped up his elbows, and laced his fingers together in front of his face. When he looked at Tiya, she was sure she could detect a hint of a hidden smile again. He glanced past her toward her mother’s offering hands, then back to her.

“I’ll get it,” she said, taking his plate to bring it closer to the offered food. Dara placed the food on his plate, and Tiya returned it to its proper place on the table.

Sarhahn looked at it in thought for a moment, then looked past Tiya at her mother and requested, “More arrowhead as well.”

“Of course,” she answered, preparing her serving spoon to gather him more of the stewed root. Tiya made her best effort to look pleasant when she took his plate once more to accept food from her mother, not that he was looking at her anyway. In the middle of her returning his plate to him a second time, he turned to Hattoka and requested that he expand on what he knew about the relationship between Vatt and her monstrous neighbor.

As Tiya had originally hoped, Sarhahn kept the remainder of the conversation geared toward keeping Hattoka talking about himself and his associates in Vas Kedar. Which dragged on for a substantial length of time beyond any normal dinner, as he kept Tiya refilling his plate long after everyone else was done eating. He seemed to be fully capable of eating until all the food was gone, and he did precisely that.

Tiya couldn’t quite pick out the important information from his questioning. He chatted about everything from recent work the church was undertaking, to current trends in the arts, to what restaurant served the best red quail (so it turned out that some fowl was safe to serve him, after all). On this last note, Sarhahn made a wistful recount of how the restaurants in Vas Kedar, novelty businesses at the time, held a competition for the opportunity to serve his meals for a day the last time he visited the city on business.

Hattoka took it all in stride. Tiya thought the kisri was full of himself. Still, she was just glad to be released from having to defend her belief in front of everyone, even if she did think that if Sarhahn was going to shoot the breeze, he could at least talk about topics her father could participate in.

His unrushed pace and ongoing conversation made the process a long one, though they did settle into an easy rhythm. Sarhahn spoke, then ate, then spoke, ate, and when he was ready for more food, placed his utensils on the table and glanced at Tiya. Tiya filled his plate, and he returned to conversation without saying a word to her.

She wondered offhandedly whether eating was a need or a mere pleasantry for the gods’ servants. And whether they were all this enthusiastically insufferable.

She didn’t mind at all when Sarhahn announced having somewhere to go after dinner came to its long, _long_ awaited conclusion. “Where to?” she asked. She was playing at polite conversation, but if the answer wasn’t off the end of the earth, she didn’t really care where it was.

“Somewhere on duty; I’ll be back in the morning,” Sarhahn answered. “I’ll be out of your way for the remainder of the night, so enjoy it while you can.” Tiya didn’t have anything nice to say, so she smiled at him.

“Is there anything we can do to accommodate you in the meantime?” Muir asked, patience restored since the end of the unsavory talk of the snake.

“Not at all.” He glanced to Hattoka before returning his attention to Tiya’s father. “Your offering alone has been more than generous. Besides, I’m sure you’ll have your hands more than full showing your gratitude for dinner as well.” Tiya wanted to roll her eyes at his use of the phrase, a very optimistic way for those in Vatt’s domain to refer to cleaning up after a meal. “Have a blessed night.” He didn’t bother with any further formalisms before he turned his back to the others and left them to tend to the messy remains of dinner.


	11. Investigation

As Sarhahn had predicted, the door to Tiya’s house was unlocked when Typha arrived. She knocked, then waited, then knocked again before opening the door and sticking her head in, and she called the residents’ names just to be absolutely sure that she wasn’t walking in to the entire family staring at her entering their home. Sarhahn must have still been keeping them busy.

She stepped in and closed the door. The raised handwashing basin tugged at her second-nature urge to use it upon entering a building, but she then wondered whether using it would tip the family off to her having been there. She peeked into the bucket of fresh water sitting down between its wooden legs. There was still enough that she could wash her hands without noticeably affecting the amount of water remaining.

Thank goodness. Hopefully after Sarhahn left this town, she would never again be tempted to shirk the handwashing custom for the sake of a theft.

Typha washed her hands and poured some water in behind herself to rinse the leftover suds down the drain that led outside. She had an idea where to look. Muir had a study, where she, Typha, and Chali used to spend the night when they still had sleepovers. It was roomy enough to accommodate an adult, Typha was sure.

She headed to the study, also unlocked, and celebrated the small victory of finding what looked like a setup for Hattoka: desk pushed to the corner, a few blankets and pillows laid out on the floor, a small rifle for fending off the occasional wolf or panther that might appear between here and the capital, bags made of a sturdy canvas that looked suitable for travel. Typha looked over her shoulder, and she found no one watching her.

The blankets proved easiest to search, requiring only that she feel around for any odd rectangles jutting up from the floor below. She found none, however, and so had the two bags to search. Still feeling more than a little preemptively guilty for searching someone else’s belongings, she groped the outsides to guess at the contents. Maybe it would be a little less invasive of her to open only the bag she needed to steal from.

The bag packed with noisier, harder contents seemed most promising, so she loosened the straps to peek inside. There was a box containing matches, a pendant in the shape of a splashing pike, and some other small items. There were writing materials. Most importantly, there were books inside. Books containing whatever Hattoka was illicitly investigating and planning. And Typha only needed to grab them and hand them over to Sarhahn to decide their legality, if she so wished to put the matter into his hands.

Of course, if she did that, Hattoka might be killed. Typha stared at the books, chest growing tight at the thought of condemning a man to death. Was the punishment really warranted for the crime? Did Vatt have no faith that her believers could be redeemed after straying from her?

She picked up a book, lips subconsciously pressing together. This was the same god who rushed to them when the snake god attacked, the same god who worked endlessly to provide them with the water needed for life. Yet since Sarhahn had appeared, the immortals seemed far crueler than what the children’s tales and church sermons had ever made her believe.

Typha wanted to know what Vatt would even want to keep from them, what a god could possibly have to hide. Typha knew she needed to decide whether she was going to follow Sarhahn’s instructions or leave the books and go to him empty-handed. Either choice would keep her from fault, just as long as she didn’t read. But no one was here to see what she was reading, and she had already seen more than she was meant to anyway.

She opened the topmost journal.

This one, like the first notebook that started this mess, contained a page of acknowledgments and a few more pages of preface. Typha was relieved – acknowledgments naming others in the church was a sign that this was safe for reading, and safe for Hattoka to have written.

The first entry wasn’t quite as comforting. Over her life, she had heard plenty of stories of how Vatt rewarded her most devoted believers and preachers. She had even heard the occasional story about nonbelievers being met with life-changing experiences that turned them back to the correct way. A near drowning, followed be a miraculous return to life from just past the brink. A mysterious, isolated case of water-borne illness that just as mysteriously healed upon repentance.

But this first entry was a story detailing punishment on a much larger scale, written with all the academic neutrality of a writer banned from inserting his personal emotion into his words. The town at the edge of the domain’s largest lake had been too greedy with it at one time. They freely drew from it as irrigation, and they overfished recklessly.

That lake was known as a holy site to the people of Vatt’s domain. But when her followers in the north abused her lake and strained her power, she cursed it.

Hattoka’s writing listed best estimates for rainfall information from that point in time and compared them with averages in different cities. He made it clear that Vatt had held back rain to dry out her lake. Rather than heed Vatt’s dissatisfaction and appeal for her forgiveness, the town pumped the lake more desperately, and as crop yields began to drop, they fished more frequently to feed themselves.

Vatt kept her position. She killed their food sources in the lake. When fishers set out in the morning twilight, they found white underbellies of dead fish standing out against the dark lake water. Yet they kept fishing, and between the pressure from Vatt’s warnings and human harvesting, five fish species were believed to be eradicated from the lake.

Hattoka invited the reader to the appendix for more details on the repopulation efforts following these events.

The town didn’t stop their mismanagement of Vatt’s water until she held back her final and most crucial blessing: she stopped purifying the lake. Hattoka acknowledged that the specific illness was unclear and perhaps may have been a combination of more than one, and then he proceeded to name symptoms and fatality rates.

Typha grew nauseous as she read about children’s greater vulnerability to the diseases Vatt fed them. They had no say in how the lake was managed – why should they have borne the brunt of the punishment?

The sound of a knock at the door jerked her back to reality. Typha realized the time. The blue tint of sunlight filtering from below the canopy line floated into the window. Cicadas sang their mechanical call. Another knock. Sarhahn had come looking for her.

She looked down at the notebook in her hand and the others in the open bag. They might have had forbidden writings; they might not have. But there had to be another way to deal with Hattoka that didn’t involve cold-blooded murder.

She put her faith in the church’s peer review, and she hoped one book would suffice as evidence of her sincerity in searching. With the book in hand, she reset the study to its original state as best as she could, and she returned to the front door of the house.

Sarhahn stood at the doorway. Dark clouds had gathered above, but the sun rested with nothing but forest canopy half-blocking its light in the southwestern sky.

“Typha,” he greeted. He quickly confirmed that Typha had produced something with a glance at the book. “Let’s go,” he said, already turning.

Typha found herself following a wall of feathers as he began to walk away. She jogged to get herself on the front side of his tail. She was grateful for the little bit of woods that surrounded Tiya’s house. Without it, she and the kisri would be far too visible walking away from the currently empty house.

Sarhahn glanced down at the book again. “Just one then,” he said, or maybe asked.

“It’s all I could find,” she lied. “Maybe he carries his other books with him.”

“Very well.” He extended his hand to receive the notebook. Releasing it to him took Typha some effort to stamp down her fear.

“I’ll need to review this. As soon as I have substantial evidence of treachery, I’ll be able to come pass judgment. If he’s innocent, on the other hand, that could take much longer to decide.” He lifted the journal and considered it. “With any luck, this journal will be all I need for this case.”

“Right,” she said, more submission than agreement. His last words bothered her. Was his goal simply to finish the job as quickly as possible, whether or not he had the right conclusion? What would stop Typha from fabricating all of this, writing some blasphemous text, and then pinning it all on Hattoka?

Before, Sarhahn had spoken of gathering evidence as if he were planning to conduct a serious and thorough investigation. Considering how easily he delegated the searching to Typha, she wondered whether that was just a front to give the appearance of being fair.

“Hey, Sarhahn?” she called.

“What?” he asked back.

“Could Vatt punish Hattoka by herself if she wanted?”

He glanced at her. A moment passed without an answer. “Not him alone, no.” He looked at her again. “Gods like Vatt have certain limitations.”

Typha feared another one of Hattoka’s insights about Vatt was about to be confirmed. “Is she not strong enough?”

Sarhahn scoffed. “To the contrary.”

“So she’s too strong?”

He tapped his fingers on the journal. Typha looked down at the hand holding his new evidence. “Suppose you found an anthill in your home.” This brought Typha’s attention back up to Sarhahn’s face. He was looking ahead once again, seemingly unbothered by the comparison. “How well do you think you could pluck out the ant that led the others in without harming her sisters crowding around her?”

“But there are stories about people who were punished alone and forgiven,” Typha argued. “Did something change since those times?”

Sarhahn gave a modest little chuckle, closing his eyes as he laughed. The appearance of a smile on his face was a lovely surprise Typha wasn’t expecting.

“I’m sure there are,” he answered. “Vatt could do something like flood the river, or curse a lake if she needed to.” Typha wanted to cringe at the last idea. “But she lacks the ability to punish a single human. Fortunately for you, these kinds of large-scale punishments have fallen out of favor for most gods. That’s where I come in.”

Typha didn’t know what to say to him as they continued walking through the small thicket of trees. Just being alone with him now gave her a persistent sense of apprehension, and she wanted to kick herself for still getting distracted by his appearance. His readiness to turn to violence frightened her, but according to him, he was the best thing Anadi had right now, short of another epidemic like the one Hattoka wrote about.

Rain began to drizzle over the patch of wood. Typha heard more than she felt the water landing on her for now, thanks to the tree cover.

She pushed her dampening hair out of her face as they came near the opening of trees that returned them into town. Rain fell steadily, though lightly. “So does Vatt really see us like ants?”

Sarhahn stopped walking, and so she did as well. She noticed how rain fell over him without seeming to touch him. He remained completely dry in the rain – a quick peek at his hair or tail made that clear, as if he were protected by a thin, invisible wall that clung to his shape.

“Typha,” he called. He lifted a hand to her shoulder, and she jerked upon contact without thinking. He didn’t react to her skittish response, neither tightened nor released his hold. “You’ve been valuable to me thus far. Let’s not ruin that with too many questions.”

When she decided he wasn’t about to draw a weapon on her again, she nodded. “I’m sorry,” she said to him.

He gave an obligatory smile, then resumed his walk. Typha had a feeling he would require her assistance again soon. Until then, she was going to need to rein in her questioning as long as he was in town.


	12. Follow-Up

With Sarhahn gone to wherever he needed to go and the buzz around his appearance settled (enough that people weren’t still flocking to the church), Typha was ready to head to the farms and collect the remaining data the next morning. She returned to Tiya’s house and tried not to pay too much attention to the reflexive guilt that jabbed at her upon her approach.

The morning air wasn’t hot, not exactly, but it certainly wasn’t cool, and the dampness in the air left over from last night’s rain had her sweating steadily as she walked up the familiar path to Tiya’s front door. As she reached forward to knock at the door, it occurred to her that today was the last day Tiya was going to live in this house. With all her stress over the visitors over the past few days, she wasn’t sure that she felt this fact as much as she should.

No answer came for a few moments. Typha began to knock again, but the door opened before she could make contact. Hattoka stood at the doorway, a bucket of water in tow.

“Young Typha! Good morning,” he greeted warmly.

“Good morning,” she returned, much less enthusiastically, as he placed the bucket below the entry handwashing basin. “Is Tiya here?”

“Of course, of course,” he answered, but he was moving to the door again. “Let me have a word with you for a minute first.”

He stepped out, and Typha moved out of his way. After shutting the door behind himself, he said, “I’m so happy to see you’re safe.”

Typha clenched her bag strap anxiously. “What do you want to talk about?” she asked. “I got rid of your journal. I don’t want to be involved in this mess anymore.”

“And of course, I’m nothing but grateful for your help. Did you have any trouble completing the task?”

She avoided eye contact. “No. I mean, it was pretty scary. And dangerous. You know it wasn’t right for you to be here while I went and put myself in danger.”

“We have to be strategic in dealing with the kisri. Were I to disappear from town as soon as I was accused of blasphemy, I would only incriminate myself and implicate you with me.”

Typha still couldn’t meet his eye. “I guess.”

“You have to trust me on this. That creature has been in the business of punishing humans as far back as written history goes. We can’t rely on him taking mercy on us.”

She shook her head. She didn’t want to hear his arguments for why they needed to work together. ‘What did you want to talk about, again?”

“I just wanted to check up after your trip to the snake’s territory. I understand that it can’t have been easy.”

“I’m fine. Let me talk to Tiya. I need her to let Clover out.”

“I’ll go find her in a moment. But first, did you encounter the snake while you were on its land?”

Typha’s shoulders dropped. “Is that what you wanted to know?”

“Young Typha, listen. Sightings of the snake are incredibly rare, I can’t stress that enough to you. You already saw it once; if you saw it twice and survived both times, it would m–”

“If I survived?” she asked. “What does that mean, _if_ I survived?” Her disbelief at the situation gave way to anger as realization came to her. “You thought that thing might kill me and you told me to go out there anyway?”

“Lower your voice,” Hattoka admonished gently. Typha couldn’t believe him.

“What is wrong with you?” she asked, no quieter than before. “What if I _didn’t_ make it out alive? And you’re still treating this like some kind of research experiment!”

“I sent you because I expected you to return unharmed.”

“You’re putting people in danger doing this,” she charged. ‘Just… just stop it. Stop it and ask for forgiveness and hope Sarhahn leaves you alone.”

Hattoka stared down at her with growing irritation. “I know you took another one of my journals,” he told her.

“Sarhahn asked for it,” she said in her defense. “You told me to cooperate with him.”

“I’m not concerned about the kisri having it. But I’m sure you read the contents of that book before you gave it to him.”

“No,” she lied. “I just looked at the first few pages, and I gave it to him since it was approved by the church. You’re welcome by the way. I could have really dug for something bad in your writing.”

“And when the kisri is gone, do you intend to go back to serving a god who will curse her own people and turn tail in the face of a threat?”

Typha opened her mouth to answer, but the door to the house swung in before she could say anything. Tiya stood at the threshold, eyes darting between the two standing in front of the house.

“What’s going on?” she asked. Her eyes paused on Hattoka, then Typha again. “Are you okay? I heard you yelling.”

“I’m fine,” Typha said. She glared at Hattoka, and she was sure she didn’t look fine. “I just came to get Clover.”

Her eyes started to sting, not out of sadness or grief, but from hot, frustrated tears welling up at her inability to make Hattoka understand that what he was doing was wrong. She couldn’t make him care that Vatt was their god, not some old tool to replace as he wished. And she couldn’t make him care more about her own safety than he did about recording whatever information he could get about the giant snake.

Typha spat on the ground and scowled back up at Hattoka. “I have work to do,” she barked before stomping toward the barn.

Tiya followed behind without addressing Hattoka. When they were out of earshot, she caught up to ask, “What was that all about?”

Typha shook her head. “I thought I was doing the right thing by helping him,” she answered. “I hope he gets what’s coming to him, and soon.”

Tiya stopped to stare at her, then jogged to return to her side. She dropped the topic and focused on getting Clover for Typha. “So, you still have some more farmers to visit, right?” Tiya asked.

“Yeah,” Typha answered, sounding deflated now with the distance from Hattoka. “Just whoever I missed yesterday while they were in town.”

“I have to prepare for tomorrow and do the rehearsal later on, but,” she paused to consider her next words, “maybe sometime, after everything with the wedding is over, we can do something together. Go fishing or something, you know?”

Typha looked at her and finally softened. “Yeah.” She smiled, and Tiya did the same. “Let’s do that. And let’s bring Chali.”

“We should tell her to come an hour later than we actually meet,” she joked. “Maybe that way we’ll catch something before she gets all the big fish.”

A quiet laugh escaped Typha. Chali seemed to simply have a magical way with fish, but Tiya could reel them in proficiently too. Typha was the one who always had to go home with a catch from each of her friends to avoid going home empty-handed for the first year of them fishing unsupervised.

They reached the barn where the horses and boar were kept overnight, along with riding gear and other tools needed to care for the land and animals. They got Clover saddled up and ready to go out to the farms once more.

Typha gave a parting thanks and waved goodbye to Tiya. She sent Clover back to the northern tip of the crescent of farmland at a steady trot. On the way, she realized that she had yet to see Sarhahn – not that she minded. But between both her and Hattoka’s apparent cooperation and the absence of substantial proof of his plans against Vatt, it didn’t look likely that Sarhahn would be able to act against Hattoka.

It wasn’t right of her to say that she hoped something bad would happen to Hattoka – she knew that. But she also couldn’t bring herself to want to take it back, despite how her guilt nudged her about it. Maybe that was the only way he would understand that what he was doing wasn’t a game.

Typha wondered just what Hattoka could do anyway. It would take more than a human could muster to bring down a god, that much she knew from witnessing rifle fire bounce off the snake without even making it flinch. She only hoped that his goal, malicious and reckless as it was, would remain nothing more than a hopeless, mad fantasy.


	13. Absent Without Leave

After Typha left with Clover, Tiya proceeded to let the other animals out of the barn. Between waving goodbye to her friend and leading the family horse outside to the pasture, she hoped whatever Hattoka had done to Typha wasn’t anything extreme. The fact that the kisri came here to investigate him was dire enough of an indication that the man was trouble to begin with.

That aside, she had never seen Typha that livid with anyone before.

She hoped this investigation would be over soon. Tonight was going to be the last night she would sleep in her parents’ house with him in it anyway, but she wanted him out of Anadi, period.

When she passed by the chicken coop, one of the chickens appeared to be especially proud of herself, pacing and clucking in the pen. Perhaps to ease her rising frustration about both Hattoka and Sarhahn’s intrusion on her upcoming wedding, she imagined Sarhahn, hands on his hips, positioned at the front of the church and announcing to the town that he had convicted the blasphemer, come look at him in awe.

Tiya let out a soft chuckle, then peeked into the chicken coop to confirm what she had suspected: the vocal bird was singing her egg-song. The chickens reluctantly stepped out of her way when she approachedto the coop to reach in and retrieve the egg. She straightened, inspected it for cracks, and then caught sight of a large, green, eye-spotted fan of feathers coming up the path to her house.

Sarhahn approached up the path with his head high and arms folded behind his back. Tiya could sense his sour attitude from halfway across the yard. He stopped walking as soon as he reached the shortest distance between the path and where Tiya stood, and he looked at her expectantly.

Of course, he wouldn’t go out of his way to come to her when she could go to him instead.

Tiya placed the egg in her pocket and straightened the skirt of her dress. She shuffled to attend to him like the obedient young lady of the church she was meant to exemplify. Before she could even greet him with a “Good morning” and “How can I help you,” he demanded, “Where is Typha?”

Tiya made her best effort to keep her facial expressions in check. “She went out to the farms,” she answered. “She has records work to do.”

His eyes rolled, slowly, as if he was already exasperated out of the energy for a proper display of frustration. “Well when will she be back?” he tried.

“I don’t know.” He stared down at her, apparently awaiting further explanation. Sweat shone at his forehead, and a few stray curls clung to his temples. Light danced off him perfectly, as if arranged by a painter’s beautifying imagination.

“It depends on how many people missed yesterday,” Tiya persevered. “A lot of our farmers didn’t report their numbers since they were in town visiting you.”

A slight tilt of his head was the only acknowledgment he offered for her not-so-subtle blaming him for Typha’s absence. “She’s been my correspondent while I’m here. I need her back in town as soon as possible.”

His automatic assumption that everyone around him would be able to drop everything they were doing for him at a moment’s notice was quickly becoming infuriating. “Well I don’t have a way to bring her back here,” she answered, “so I’m afraid you’ll have to wait. Unless there’s anything I can do to help you in her place.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Then he could go away, Tiya thought. “What do you need her for anyway?” she asked. “She told me you weren’t here for the wedding.”

“Did she? And what else did she tell you?”

Tiya stopped herself from answering too quickly. “She told me that she’s scared of you.”

Sarhahn gave a soft laugh and sincere smile that would have been charming were he not so abrasive. “She should be,” he said. Tiya had no doubt he fully enjoyed knowing that he was feared.

“What did you do to her?” Her anger with him seeped out as her brow furrowed and her jaw set tight.

“I gave her a gentle reminder of what can happen if she steps out of her place.” His face morphed into something more like a smirk. He almost looked playful peering down at her. “Do you have something to say about it?”

“I can’t believe you,” she told him. “You’re Vatt’s servant. You’re supposed to be helping us, not acting like… like a…”

“Like a what?”

His taunting smirk and goading questions made Tiya pause. Be it because he distrusted her or out of a purely combative nature, Tiya realized he was trying to lure her into saying something she shouldn’t. She decided that the best response was none at all.

“You really can’t stand me, can you?” Sarhahn pressed once he decided she wasn’t going to answer.

She wished she could tell him yes, that she hated him and his egotism and the way his never-pleasant smile only brought her attention to how soft his lips looked. But she stayed silent – this could easily be another part of the verbal trap.

“It’s alright. You can admit it. You wouldn’t be the first, nor the last person, to want me gone."

Tiya resisted talking herself into whatever hole he was trying to lead her toward, even if she already knew she was spellbound by his stare. “What do you want?” she asked. “Typha’s not here, and I can’t make her get here any faster.”

“I want you and Typha to stop thinking you can keep secrets from me. I’m sure she’s told you why I’m here. It’d take me far less time to determine the preacher’s guilt than it would his innocence. _If_ I can get proof in a timely matter. Either way, I’m not going anywhere until I have a conclusion I can present to Vatt.”

“And what does that have to do with me and Typha? That sounds like it’s between you and Brother Hattoka.”

He shook his head and chided her with a few clicks of his tongue. “Is this the pious obedience I’m supposed to get from a priest’s daughter?” Again, Tiya didn’t answer his taunt. He steepled his hands in front of him. “How about this? I want to wrap up this little assignment, and you want me gone. If you know about anything that would incriminate Hattoka, tell me, and I’ll go away faster.”

“I…” She closed her eyes and lowered her head with a huff. As long as she kept the focus on Hattoka and not Typha, it wouldn’t be her or her friend’s problem. “I think one of Hattoka’s journals is hidden out in the forest,” she surrendered. “Where the giant snake lives.”

“All the way out there? That’s quite a story to get rid of me.”

“Fine, don’t believe me.”

“I just wonder how you would know about something like that.”

She shrugged. “It’s a good hunch, I guess. You pick up on stuff when a person is living in your home.”

“Of course. A woman’s intuition is not to be underestimated,” he said, suddenly businesslike. “Both you and Typha seem to have quite the gift of insight.”

“I told you what you wanted to know.”

His pressed fingers tapped together. “You’re doing your best to be a good friend to Typha, I know.” He glanced past her, and his attention lingered there. Tiya turned to see what had caught his eye. Hattoka peeked out from a window, and she frowned when she noticed his spying.

“I’m afraid that man may have dragged her into more trouble than you understand,” Sarhahn continued. “You won’t be able to protect her from me forever. When her time comes, blame Hattoka, not me.”

Tiya’s head snapped toward Sarhahn. She expected him to be coy again, but when she met his eye, he kept the same detached, yet serious, look pointed at her. “What are you going to do to her?” she hissed.

“Your cooperation is appreciated. Vatt’s blessings to you on your wedding day.” He turned his back to her and began to step away.

“What are you going to do to her?” she snarled again. Sarhahn didn’t bother answering.

She wanted to follow him. She wanted to march right after him and wring his neck. But her feet stayed frozen in place. Instead of a threat to yell after him, her mind filled with the memory of an old children’s tale, one about a king who wouldn’t obey his god, and who met his end by a kisri who tore him apart with its four bare hands in front of his subjects.

Tiya didn’t notice Hattoka coming outside until he was right next to her. “What did he just say to you?” he asked, voice urgent.

Her mouth opened. Nothing came out.

“What did you tell him?” Hattoka asked, only growing more urgent.

“He’s going to the forest,” Tiya simply answered.

Hattoka stared after him. “Is he, now,” he said more than asked. Tiya wasn’t sure exactly what she heard in his voice.


	14. Search

The case should have been routine, muscle memory almost. Sarhahn should have had a verdict prepared already, and acquiring the evidence a mere formality. As it turned out, over a century out of work had left him rusty.

He had to carry out his task with due diligence, of course, but there were too many holdups. Hattoka was a little _too_ cooperative, though he always fell shy of revealing enough knowledge to border on the suspicious. Whether Typha’s charge against him was a legitimate concern or a malicious setup had yet to be determined. Tiya’s potential role as an accomplice, either to Hattoka or to Typha, was worth consideration as well.

The journal Typha had given him was useless for this particular job, but at least it was a decent catalogue of Vatt’s capabilities with curses.

Sarhahn paid little mind to the people who stopped to bow and cup their hands at him as he took the main road through Anadi to the river. Visiting with all of them yesterday had confirmed that this was certainly one of those little towns where people worshipped their god better than they understood her. As far as they were concerned, that was probably in their best interest. As far as Sarhahn was concerned, most of the town could be presumed harmless.

He was accustomed to being followed, by admirers and enemies alike. In this case, there was no need to peek behind his tail to see whether anyone was trailing after him. If anyone interrupted their daily responsibilities and followed him, it would only be to feed their curiosity about him heading straight to the river.

When he reached it and found a section of bank that wasn’t too steep, he proceeded to the water’s edge and further into the river. At the first place his feet could find purchase in the water, he stood thigh-deep in it, and the flow was forceful enough to make him to brace against it.

It was easiest for him to emulate the flow of the river at his feet first, where water surrounded him. Just as he could hide a dagger in water with Vatt’s aid, he could hide his own body, and he needed only access the open spring of her power to dissolve into the river.

Shifting his form into a pocket of mist or a stream of flowing water often altered his sense of time. Shape was the most familiar to him, distance less so. He relied on finding that sensation, like shedding heavy clothing, that meant leaving Vatt’s ambient power. He anchored himself in place, located the river bank, and threw himself to dry land to reassume his natural form.

When he was himself again, the forest felt warm despite the ever-present shade. Trees trapped humidity to thicken the air, damper than the town’s open atmosphere. He pulled a deep breath against the heavy, saturated air. Surely this place was thriving.

And if the feral god was still as lively as ever, then it was likely that her followers, the residents of the forest, would greet him at some point or another. Sarhahn extended his hand toward the river. It should still be there from last time, he recalled. Just as he hoped, a javelin darted from the river. He caught it in its flight.

The weapon was every bit as pristine as he remembered: lightweight for throwing, not a single rusty blemish on its shaft or bend weakening its tip.

He didn’t plan on breaking the rules of this forest again. But that was no reason to be completely defenseless.

He stepped away from the river bank and further into the forest. He collapsed his tail, still holding it just above the ground to keep it from dragging through dirt and plant debris. There was a tickle at his ankle as he stepped through a cluster of cattails.

Using his spear to separate the tall grass, he found a cottonmouth coiled on the ground and realized it had bitten him. So the snake god wasn’t feeling as grandiose in greeting him today. Without any god magic backing the bite, it wasn’t enough to leave a scratch on him.

“I thought you were dead,” a voice thrummed in his head.

Sarhahn crouched and lay his free arm over his knees. “Sorry to disappoint. I’m afraid I’ll need access to the area.”

The snake rested its head. “You know the rules.”

“Thank you for indulging me,” he responded before standing.

“At least you’ve learned some manners since last time,” the voice commented as he proceeded into the forest.

Sarhahn peered around. He would not likely need to travel a very complex path, not with one of Vatt’s people doing the smuggling. The problem was finding the journal among the countless hiding places it could have been stowed. He would need to rely on guesses about who brought it here.

A squirrel hurried up a tree and into a hollow. Those would certainly make viable hiding spots, but a long dress or an aging body would discourage climbing to any that were located very far from the ground. On the other hand, he doubted whether it would merely be left at the ground level. The fact that it was hidden rather than destroyed meant that the smuggler wanted to preserve it, and so it would need to be stored away from rain and wear.

“Why are you here with a weapon?” the voice from the forest asked.

“I’m on assignment for Vatt, and I have reason to believe that an item I need for my work was hidden in the forest.”

His suspicion leaned toward the book having been buried, and in a sturdy enough container that if the smuggler planned for him to be here at least a few days, the journal would stand burrowing insects and possible rains. He stopped walking and thought.

“You’ve returned to my land uninvited yet again. And yet again, it’s on the trout’s behalf. What a coincidence.”

“It’s no coincidence. Since you told the gods you poisoned me, they’re terrified to contract with me. Vatt was assigned to bear the risk first, whenever she found herself ready.”

“You were free to clarify what happened.” A clear note of amusement lit the tone.

“I told them what they needed to know.”

Back to the task. Find the journal. Would Tiya risk lying to him? Humans could seem erratic when they found themselves in danger. But even if ignorant, they were functionally rational. They weighed risks when they saw trouble. Tiya may not be as quiet and agreeable as she should have been, but she likely had more than enough of her father’s teachings to know not to lie to an immortal. Technical truths, however, could be more misleading than a lie.

“The trout sure took her time in calling you back to service.”

He belatedly noticed the comment in his pondering. “It’s been over a century,” he responded after a few seconds’ silence.

Whoever brought the journal out here, the fact of the matter was that burying it was the most obvious option. And it was the option Sarhahn was least equipped to deal with. He looked at the forest around him. A wolf watched him from a distance. He ignored it.

There had to be something he was missing. What else would the culprit do with a journal full of blasphemous writing?

“What’s a century, little one?” the voice asked.

Sarhahn continued his peering until he noticed a snake, this one hiding in plain sight in a hollow of tree roots. He stepped closer and raised his spear.

The wolf growled.

His eyes shifted to it, then returned to the snake. “It’s a way humans count time. Shall I show you?”

“You may.”

 “You know a year, yes?”

“Yes, yes.”

“I’ll demonstrate the number of years.” He held his javelin, blunt end out, and he counted in his head as he tapped the trunk of the tree for the snake to feel.

His mind flipped through pictures of the years as he counted. The first seven hadn’t been so bad. Sarhahn dedicated his time to training then, honing his existing skills with spears and knives before branching into other long-handled weapons. Halberds, tridents, and the like.

He grew bored until he could no longer take it over the next two years, however. He then began travel as a tourist until the eighteen-year mark. It was an enjoyable diversion for a while, especially while taking advantage of the food, money, and certain services offered to him by virtue of what he was.

The subsequent dozens of years blurred together. Certainly, he was active in this time, and he counted the years then as he did now. Yet the growing number grew into a meaningless tick that held him in place, no matter the progress he made.

At year one hundred three, he heard Vatt call for a kisri. She turned down his offer to aid her. At year one hundred eight, he was more successful.

He stopped when he realized he had overcounted. No matter. The snake had no need to know how to count to one hundred exactly. Anything past three or four was likely just a curiosity of human behavior to her.

“That’s not terribly long, is it?” the voice asked after a moment of consideration.

“It’s more than long enough for the mind to itch with boredom.”

“So you’re sniffing so hard in hopes that the worshipped gods will let you be their dog again.”

His nose crinkled. “If you must put it that way.”

The wolf stepped forward. Sarhahn’s hackles stood. His collar tightened as the iron-solid feathers at his nape pushed at it from the inside. He lifted a hand to his neck to smooth them down, and he watched the wolf long enough to determine that it wasn’t coming toward him.

The god of this forest was a major distraction. She was much more talkative than he remembered her being. It was harder to craft a solution to his current problem when he had a massive, standoffish, immortal beast’s good side to stay on.

“I’ll admit, I understand how your kind can be useful,” her voice commented. “Since you and humans can understand each other, you seem to be able to make better sense of their behaviors than we can.”

Sarhahn propped himself with his javelin and smiled at the forest. “They’re really not much harder to understand than your wolves and bears. The only difference is that a bear can’t speak to me.”

“Well then, since they’re so easy to understand, answer something.”

A heavy rustling in the distance caught his attention. Up ahead, the wolf was pawing at plant debris under a bee balm bush. It dipped its head to reach with its mouth, and it retrieved a leather-bound book in dirty, yet intact condition.

Sarhahn stared speechless as the wolf took a few steps in his direction and sat.

“What is this?” the god asked.

He blinked. “I’d like to know the same.”


	15. Reach

A problem stood before Sarhahn. He had a solution in mind. It was the wrong solution, he knew, but it was the first to come to him.

He stopped himself from launching his javelin at the wolf, and he stared dumbly while trying to decide instead.

The wolf tilted its head back. As if to show off what it had.

“It seems I have your attention now,” boasted the voice of the god who owned this forest. “What is this, and why do you need it so direly?”

“That’s called a book,” Sarhahn answered. “Humans use it to store and share their thoughts. I’m looking for one said to have been left in your forest.” He was honest – if the gods resented deception, the feral gods detested it.

The snake had yet to reveal herself at her fullest size. Sarhahn scanned the woods around him. He half expected to see her enormous belly scales in the trees, or her forked tongue flicking between tree trunks at any moment.

Three more wolves had positioned behind him, spaced apart to intercept whatever path he might try to take to flee.

“So you need this thing to report to Vatt, and then she’ll set you free to work for your borrowed scraps of godhood from whoever you wish?”

He bit his tongue. “In short,” he answered. He stepped toward the wolf with the book. The others behind him snarled without approaching. As long as he showed no sign of threatening the snake god’s property, perhaps she would relinquish the journal.

“And what do I owe to you to permit you to stroll into my forest and take what you wish from it?”

Sarhahn’s eyes surveyed around him again. The other three wolves still remained in place, all watching him intently. “Feral god, surely you hold no grudge against me to hinder my work?” he appealed, continuing at an unbroken pace. She had to be bluffing. He couldn’t let a key piece of evidence be dangled in front of his nose.

“Don’t forget that you stand unharmed on my land at this moment by my grace alone. I have no reason to grant you any further favors.”

Sarhahn came within a yard of the wolf. It stood when he did, as if preparing to bolt. Sarhahn froze in place. He stared at the wolf, a creature always taller than he expected, and it stared golden eyes back up at him.

“So, little one. How generous am I feeling?”

Sarhahn thought too fast, or maybe didn’t think at all. At any rate, his legs sprung him forward, and his empty hand plunged for the journal. The wolf was faster. It darted away with him in pursuit.

The feet of the other wolves rustled behind him as they kicked up plant debris in their chase. He thought of their teeth, and dread stirred bile in his stomach. When that fear took physical form inside him, he knew he should have noticed earlier. This wouldn’t be like the bite from the little water snake. He ran, no longer after the animal up ahead, but away from the ones behind.

A weight suddenly caught Sarhahn at his tail. He turned to find that a wolf had pounced onto his tail and had a mouthful of bent feathers. A bolt of panic shot up from his chest at the sight of the wolf’s mouth touching him. His hands grabbed under the head of his javelin and swung the shaft into the wolf’s side. It released him with a yelp. The other two took advantage of the diversion.

One leaped up to close its jaw on his arm. A shout tore from Sarhahn’s throat. The wolf’s teeth had locked into his flesh, too deeply to be any normal animal bite. The other grabbed his javelin in its mouth and snatched it from his grip. The stricken on returned to leap over his tail and latch onto his hair.

The force of its landing knocked the kisri forward to the ground. The wolf thrashed side to side with the full strength of its body. Sarhahn’s head jerked with the wolf’s swinging jaws, neck feeling boneless against the snake god’s curse-bearing dogs.

With one wolf tearing at his arm and another trying to break his neck, he was surprisingly unprepared for the pain of the last assailant grabbing his other arm. The two clamping onto his limbs fought a tug-of-war with him as their rope.

Another shout sounded from Sarhahn. He needed to do something. There was something he could do to try to escape, he was sure, but he couldn’t grasp a solid thought. Pain clutched his mind too tightly for thought.

The wolf swinging his head paused to breathe. Sarhahn remembered – he could dissolve his body into water. One mouth adjusted its bite on his arm, tearing his attention back and forcing a yell from his lungs. His head began swinging in his attacker’s grip again, and he forgot whatever he had just tried to think about.

On its second pause, it released his hair and stepped away from him. Each other the other two gave another ripping pull before dropping his arms from their mouths.

Sarhahn lay with a tree root shoved into his cheek and his saliva-matted hair falling over his face. The earth beneath him felt too hard, and the root under his face cut into him too sharply. He tried to lift his chest, but the pain seizing his neck intensified tenfold at the slightest movement. The force of the wolves’ teeth still burned in his arms, but now that he tried to use them, he wasn’t entirely sure whether he could feel his hands.

He had been cursed, alright. The snake god must have softened his body with the blight her wolves delivered to him. He panted as he tried to return to his senses, each motion of his chest agitating his neck anew.

He would heal. If the snake had intended to kill him just then, she wouldn’t have stopped her followers’ attack. She would let him live, as long as he didn’t make another wrong move.

“I have an alternative to offer you,” the snake god said, “unless you want to try that again.”

Sarhahn’s brow furrowed. A new sensation filled his arms and neck, not at all pleasant in its own right. Vatt’s reserves of power slowly undid the damage from the wolves’ attack. He drew that power in a little more greedily.

A dull sweetness flowed in behind the healing pain. Sensation filtered through it in mottled, shifting form, like images seen from beneath churning water. That healing power cradled his mind, urged it to turn away from the burning beyond the surface and to the safety of greater depths. He shuddered.

The snake god had said something to him, he remembered. She was probably in no hurry. He was going to lay here for a while, he decided as his eyes closed.


	16. Workday

After a few hours of thick humidity and rising temperatures, Typha was more than grateful for the northerly wind cooling the air. Still, some problems persisted from the weather. Ambient moisture lured Typha’s hair out of place, leaving her to defend her face from its cling.

The strong wind was not without its own problems. The sky had darkened considerably on the way between this farm and the last. A storm approached form the north, possibly a second wave of the previous night’s rain.

“Typha!” Violet, called, the eldest child of the house at a lofty ten years old.

The older girl looked away from the spring instrument that measured some quality of the air’s weight. She smiled. Violet’s hair was held into large twists that were too neat to have been made by an excitable child’s hand. She had a small apron on, with a pocket that looked weighed down by some rock or oddly-shaped fruit or who knew what else its owner might want to show Typha. (A frog was not out of the question.)

“Ma said are you gonna keep going after this?”

Typha looked at the sky. There was almost a clear delineation between innocuous, white puff and dark gray stormcloud, and that boundary pressed nearer at a steady pace. “Well, I have some more people to visit after this, but I’m wondering if I should.”

“She said yeah!” Violet called into the house.

“Tell her she doesn’t need to be out there with this storm on the way,” Abbi answered from within the house.

“She said it’s gonna storm,” Violet summarized. She then lit up with belated realization. “You can stay and hang out with me while you wait for the storm!”

Typha felt the first rain drops. The forgiving, drizzly phase didn’t seem like it would last long at all, not with the first rumble of thunder in the air. “As long as it’s okay with your parents,” she said, already knowing they wouldn’t let her ride off into the oncoming weather if she tried.

“It’s okay!” Violet answered for them.

Her father Amer stepped out and patted her head before turning his attention to Typha. “How’s everything lookin’?” he asked as he came outside.

“Equipment’s in good condition,” Typha told him. “Is it okay if I wait for the storm to pass here?”

He nodded his head toward the house. “I already put your horse up when I saw it coming. Looks like Vatt’s heading somewhere in a hurry.”

Typha came inside, much to Violet’s excitement.

The two sisters just after Violet were playing with each other’s hair – unauthorized to do so, most likely – and the youngest, still crawling, watched with a stuffed fish doll in arm. Abbi was in the kitchen making soap, judging by the smell of lavender just barely sneaking through the scent of lye on the air.

Violet followed close to Typha after she washed her hands. “What’re you doing?” she asked, making a few unsubtle glances at the bag hanging across Typha’s torso.

“I’m writing down the weather measurements,” she answered. “And making sure your meters are in good condition.”

“Can I help?”

“Sure, once I get the numbers from your dad, you can read them off for me.” Typha took a seat at the floor and exchanged greetings with the other girls.

In short time, he did just that. “Excuse us for being a little late in having ’em for ya,” he offered as he handed her a single folded sheet of paper.

“It’s no problem,” Typha answered.

Violet sat next to her and waited as patiently as she could manage for Typha to retrieve her records sheets and similarly marked sheets of paper from the other farmers she visited today. Typha opened all the sheets and stacked them for Violet’s convenience.

They started with Abbi and Amer. Typha had to tell her to wait and let her to sign off for their equipment before running through the numbers. Violet read the yields over the sound of rain pouring outside. Their crops: squash, tomato, arrowroot, and mint. All seemed to suffer this last season, save for the stubborn mint, but even this number was down compared to the corresponding value in the prior year’s column.

Odd, but perhaps a simple issue of land shape or soil management.

Violet proceeded to the next sheet. This farm also grew arrowroot, along with melon, peppers, and dandelion. For this one, the indifferent dandelion fared best; the peppers less so, and the water-needy arrowroot and melon were hardest hit. Their sheet was marked for measurement equipment in acceptable condition. No bad acid gauges, no leaks or mineral buildup skewing the umbrometer readings.

“Hey, Violet, can I see those papers?” Typha asked.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“I just want to see something.”

Typha’s impromptu assistant relinquished her position and the papers with it, pout clear on her face. Typha returned and apologetic look before reviewing the written records.

They both had been read correctly. And they were both showing the same pattern. An odd drop in production, with the water-loving plants exhibiting the worst losses. She didn’t know why that would be the case – she was in charge of reading the official rain gauge since the winter, and none of the records she had taken seemed out of the ordinary. There had to be something strange about their methods. At any rate, it was a matter for her to follow up on later. She was rained in now with nothing to do but keep writing.

She returned the remaining notes to Violet and resumed recording the numbers as they were called out. She occasionally had to help read badly scrawled handwriting or misspelled words. All seven of the farms she visited today had low yields. She didn’t remember this problem being so persistent yesterday. Perhaps she just wasn’t paying as much attention at the time, what with leftover nerves from the forest to distract her from her task last night.

Education in Anadi wasn’t as formal as in the cities, but most everyone knew how write and do arithmetic, at least well enough to get through the updated reports and forecasts published each season by Vas Kedar’s records keepers. Typha knew enough to calculate some summary information, but forgot exactly how to calculate mean variation, and Otto’s notes from last year didn’t have instructions. She stopped here.

Typha waited out the storm with Violet’s family once she and Violet were done reviewing numbers. Abbi just seemed happy to have someone watch her daughters while she and her husband finished as many tasks around the house as they could.

Though intense, the rainstorm was brief. Typha gathered her belongings to head out again once she saw that the storm was away from their area.

Amer helped prepare Clover for riding once Typha was ready. The rain had done nothing to cool the day. Now with the sun only higher in the sky, the combined heat and humidity threatened to smother anyone who forgot to take an occasional deep breath.

Fortunately, the farms were now out of the storm. The mass of dark cloud hovered just out of the way, to the southwest.

And unpleasant flutter filled Typha’s stomach. The last time a heavy storm like that one had passed through, it left Sarhahn behind. If this was another visit from their god, then Vatt was headed straight for the snake’s forest.

Sometimes a storm was just a storm, she told herself. And what if Vatt was going to the border with the giant snake? Typha didn’t even know what she would even do once she got there. If anything happened between the two gods, Typha’s presence would be nothing but irrelevant.

But what about Sarhahn? She had a strong inkling that if Vatt was present here, he would be too. Would it reflect poorly on her if she failed to be there with them?

Typha mounted Clover and took the reins. She knew she had to go toward that storm. She could only hope that Sarhahn didn’t find that journal. A deep breath of swampy air filled her lungs, and she sent Clover on a light gallop.


	17. Deal

“Little one.”

Sarhahn flinched into consciousness. The teeth of predators and his torn open body bid him farewell from his dreams. He blinked the fog out of his vision. How long had he been out?

His eyes explored his surroundings. He was still in the domain of the feral snake god. The ache in his neck and arms reminded him to mind his manners as long as he was here.

With some effort, he was able to push himself to his knees. A sharp headache pounded its way up from the base of his skull. He noticed the wolf with the book a few feet to his side, but the desire to drop his face into his hand commandeered his attention.

“Do you want me to give you this book, little one?”

He nodded his head, face still covered by his hand, and then realized the feral god probably had no understanding of the gesture. “I do,” he answered. He didn’t dare interpret the question as permission to take it.

“Are you willing to work for it?”

He squeezed his temples and pushed his hair back. “What did you have in mind?”

“I have a problem with humans on my borders. Those worshipped gods use you because humans heed you. I’d like to do the same. Do whatever you must, just make them stay away.”

“They know Vatt won’t support further expansion toward your domain. Any trespasses are isolated incidents. I can’t truthfully claim to prevent them.”

The wolf set down the book to yawn. Sarhahn’s eyes lingered on it.

“I don’t mean Vatt’s humans. I mean the ones on my other side.”

The feathers on his back stood. He shifted in place, and the softened plumage felt abnormally ruffled by the fabric of his clothing. “What are you talking about?” he asked. “The region should have long been flushed of humans.”

“Then you can finish the job.”

“What did the eyra have to say about this? Surely he was aware that there were humans on his domain.” He tried to ignore another rush of pounding at the base of his skull. “Did he somehow hide them from the others?” His hand settled on the back of his neck.

“You may discuss the causes once we have a contract,” the god of the forest answered his self-directed questioning. “For your agreement to that contract, I will permit you to take his book out of my forest.”

He glanced down again at the journal laid tantalizingly on the ground just past his reach. The wolf still sat in place. He didn’t trust it or its master. “And how did this item come into your possession in the first place? I suppose you would be able to tell me about human visitors from Vatt’s side of your land, wouldn’t you?”

“Is it important for you to know?”

Sarhahn noticed a distant rumble of thunder. “Knowing how that book got here would be just about as useful to me as seeing what’s in it.” Those two pieces would be the two halves he needed to act. They’d answer the question of whether a crime against Vatt was committed, and who was involved in its execution and attempted concealment.

“Then choose.”

He frowned. “Excuse me?” The time spent at rest enabled him to try standing. He pushed both palms onto the ground, still unaccustomed to how much harder the earth felt, and managed to lift himself to his feet. His tail wavered to help steady his swaying ascent, and once standing, he twisted to assess the damage. A handful of feathers had returned to their natural shape, but still showed white creases on their spines where the wolf’s mouth had seized them. He took mournful stock of these blemishes.

“I will give you your choice. The book, or your questions answered. You may have one, and in return, you will fulfill my request. Or you can sink into the river and retreat back to Vatt with neither.”

A strong wind blew the surrounding trees. “You won’t permit me both, then.”

“I only need one task of you.”

Movement around Sarhahn caught his eye. Snakes were on the move. From tall grasses, from burrows, from hollows of rotting trees, snakes slithered out of hiding, headed straight for the river. Sarhahn remained motionless, if for no other reason than not knowing how lethal a startled bite could be right now.

It was then that he realized the reason for the shift in the weather. Vatt was drawing near. And she was no doubt on high alert after sensing the fresh curse on her contractee.

The river, still partially visible from where Sarhahn stood, bulged in one spot, as if with a massive blockage. He glanced once more at the journal and its guardian before hiking closer to the river. The massive head of a venomous snake was rising out of the water. One eye, as large as his head, stared straight at him, at once brown and gold and iridescent.

Sarhahn swallowed. He wasn’t such a novice that he was stricken with fear upon the sight of a god, but he also wasn’t normally under the active curse of the god he was beholding.

Save for whichever god the snake told him about the last time he was here.

“Enough of your lurking in the clouds, trout,” she said. “Explain your presence.”

“What is the kisri doing in your forest?” Vatt’s voice demanded in their minds. “Newly cursed at that.”

“Trespassing,” the snake answered. “Yet still here to ask for my help fulfilling your needs.” Her great tongue flickered out of her mouth, somehow light and fast enough to barely splash the top of the water. “You may leave if you want the little one to continue his work.”

“And ignore you cursing him while he’s tied to me?”

It had been the gods’ concern all these years. They didn’t know what could happen if they contracted with a cursed servant. And telling them that it was fine, that he knew he had been cursed all this time without spreading it to any gods – it would only jeopardize himself as a holder of forbidden knowledge.

That was neither here nor there. Vatt was once again fearful of a curse from the snake god. And the latter, gathering her neck in the river, was not helping assuage that fear.

“If I wanted to curse you, then you would be flopping on the ground right now.”

Another crack of thunder from beyond the forest, this one fast and near and sharp.

“Vatt,” Sarhahn called, gentle enough to appease, but not formal enough to disrespect the lord of this land. “The feral god is right. This curse is due to my own insult to her.”

“Is that so,” Vatt asked. “Should I believe you’ve lost your ability to complete your work since you seem to keep getting cursed?”

Like hell she should. “I’m at no risk of failing this assignment. I already told you, if you think I’m a danger to you, strike me down. If not, I need to reach an agreement with the feral god about something.”

Vatt did not answer. Sarhahn searched the sky above where the river split the forest canopy. He couldn’t see far enough to discern what Vatt was doing – only a few harmless white clouds floated directly above that snake’s forest. The snake god remained silent. Sarhahn withheld his response as well, until he was certain that Vatt was leaving the area.

No, not leaving the area entirely. She had backed off, but she was still lingering nearby.

“You still have problems with your mouth, I see,” the snake commented.

“I’m clear to continue,” he said in his defense. The eye of the feral god remained motionless as he addressed her.

“How will I pay you then? The book, or an explanation of how it got here?”

Both were valuable. He could compare this journal to the other to authenticate them both. And if the book truly contained hidden knowledge about gods, it could be useful to his personal interests. But until he did a satisfactory job for Vatt, he couldn’t act as freely as he liked. A suspect slain would be enough to appease her, and knowing whoever brought it out here would be enough to make a quick judgment.

But damn if the prospect of long-term profit wasn’t tempting.

“I want the book.”

“You’re certain.” She tasted the air once more.

“Yes. Shall we form a contract for the exchange?”

“No.”

Sarhahn frowned.

“Come back to me when Vatt’s done with you.” At once, she vanished before Sarhahn’s eyes. River water churned loudly as it rushed in to the emptied space. “I don't want to contract with the smell of fish on you.”

“Wait.”

Snakes were scattering now, exiting the river and the reeds at its banks.

“Wait, I’m still cursed.”

“I’ll release it when you return. Take it as motivation to return quickly.”

A solid point touched the back of his hand. He looked down to find the corner of the book held in the wolf’s mouth and being nudged at him. Even the mere leather binding was unsettlingly hard against his skin.

As much as he would have liked to negotiate a way to leave here without the vulnerability she imposed on him, he had already lucked out to leave here with more than nothing. Sarhahn received the book and told the forest a resigned “Thank you.”


	18. Strike

Vatt, like any reasonable living creature, had no interest in letting a poison sit in her body.

Sarhahn, perhaps not entirely justified but definitely within reason, had not expected the feral god to curse him and let it stay there. Now, he had some explaining to do.

And he did explain to the water god swimming in the sky. She wanted to know every system affected by the curse. As he walked back toward Anadi, he enumerated what protections the snake's curse suppressed, and he reassured her that taking an injury was highly unlikely.

He took the liberty of continuing to pull on her power as he explained. If she were to voice any issue with it, it would serve as an opportunity to point out that his use of her power wasn't harming her. At any rate, keeping water off himself was necessary – a soaked tail was far heavier and made it harder to fend off those villainous blasphemers, in the rare event that they should become violent.

“I can't say I'm happy to learn you've been softened,” Vatt told him. “Why were you even in her domain?”

He refrained from answering too quickly. “Someone from your flock was there. Likely trying to avoid detection by your or me. To my knowledge, they walked out of her domain unharmed, so they must have studied your neighbor closely enough to get around her rule.”

His steps remained steady on the trail. Vatt had yet to ask about the book he was hiding in the river, but that didn't mean she hadn't noticed it. With any luck, she wouldn't know the difference between it and the other items he spirited into water with her borrowed power.

“Am I in danger?” she asked instead.

Not likely in any immediate danger from what he could tell. Still, selling his necessity to her was an inextricable feature of the freelance economy.

“There is ill intent toward you lurking in this town,” he told her. “And it's no minor gripe about rainfall levels. There may be someone who wishes to do to you what was done to the eyra god.”

The trail lit and thunder cracked dangerously close, close enough to startle Sarhahn. He jumped in place, and his mind belatedly filled in everything that could hurt him now with the curse softening his body. If not killed by a direct lightning strike, he could be crushed by a falling tree, or caught in a flash fire. Pissing Vatt off wouldn't do him any good if it got him put out of commission by her rage.

“Someone is approaching you,” Vatt informed him. “Is this your suspect?”

His tail stood, and he paused to shake the feathers out into a fan. “I wouldn't know,” he answered. He was certainly about to find out. Assuming Vatt didn't electrocute whoever it was before they reached him.

Rain and fog shrouded his view into the wooded trail ahead, but he could make out a person on horseback drawing nearer. “Identify yourself,” he called ahead.

“Hattoka Labishko,” the other announced, still coming nearer.

Sarhahn expected it might be him or Typha. He continued walking as well, until Hattoka's image cleared up. He was soaked, alone, and armed for a venture to where wild animals were a risk.

“Coming back to cover your tracks?”

Hattoka tugged his horse to a stop. “What tracks do you mean?” he asked.

“I'm well on my way to finding that out. Play stupid if you wish. I'm winning this little game whether or not you cooperate.”

Hattoka's mouth fixed in a hard line. “You know, I didn't expect that all of Vatt's servants would be as kind as Maida, but to meet one as egotistical as you has really been an experience.”

Way up above them in the cover of stormcloud, Vatt darted in zigzags and circles. “What's happening?” she asked. “Is he dangerous?”

“I'm handling it,” Sarhahn answered her.

“What was that?” Hattoka asked. Someone else was coming from behind him. His horse shook its mane against the pouring rain.

Sarhahn didn't answer the question. Of all the times to have his contractor hovering over him as he worked, it had to be right now, while he was standing in front of this source of yet-untapped information that Sarhahn himself was forbidden to know. “You mentioned Maida,” he reminded. “Creatures like her need only smile and look pleasant when dealing with mortals. I, on the other hand, was contracted by your god to get work done. And on that note, I'm not her servant.”

“Mr. Hattoka?” Typha called as she approached on her own horse. “What are you doing here?”

“Good, we have a witness,” Sarhahn said as Hattoka regarded her. “You've been under investigation for blasphemy and the pursuit of forbidden knowledge. But I'm sure you knew that the moment you saw me.” He gave a smirk with this comment. “As of this moment, you have no less than one day to prepare for judgment. Use it wisely.”

Hattoka sighed. “I only wish I can convince you that I'm just trying to understand what's best for the domain I live in.”

“We'll discuss that when I'm ready. As for you,” he looked to Typha, “what are you doing here?”

She flinched upon address. “I, I just thought I needed to be here. I saw the storm come this way, so I followed it. And I saw Hattoka coming this way when I got closer.”

“You were following me?” Hattoka snapped.

Sarhahn groaned at her naïveté. He turned his body to open their view past him. “Do either of you know what lies beyond the boundary of Vatt's land?”

Neither knew what answer he had in mind, and so both remained silent.

“Nothing but a perfectly healthy forest.” He turned his head back toward that boundary he could sense, where Vatt's magic on the groundwater abruptly ended. “Its very soul is the snake you two are so terrified by. What do either of you think you could do for or against her?”

“Stop!”

Sarhahn's head snapped toward the sound of Typha's shriek. There was more yelling, and there was a bang of thunder, close enough to deafen. His chest was bursting. He fell, and he found the barrel of Hattoka's rifle pointed at him.

Ah. That was no thunder.

He hit the ground.

Hattoka was yelling. Typha was yelling. Sarhahn's ears were ringing. He had to get out.

He retreated into the surrounding water, into the feeling of sinking to impenetrable depth. Here there was no Hattoka, no Typha, no bullet, no useless, delicate body. He turned away from the light of the surface and let himself sink.

A wide maw dashed through the water, and it seized him in its path.


	19. The Severed Head Keeps Biting

Typha couldn’t understand what was happening. Did Hattoka really just kill Sarhahn? Did kisri leave a corpse when they died? Was escaping judgment as simple as shooting their judge dead before he could give his verdict?

Hattoka himself appeared just as shocked as she was. He still pointed his rifle at the spot where Sarhahn had just stood, eyes wide.

“What did you just do?” she shouted at him.

He lowered his rifle and stared a moment longer. “Was he a fake?” he asked quietly.

What did that even mean? They both saw Sarhahn dissolve like a spoon of honey in hot tea. Blood pooled up where he had vanished into wet earth.

“Mr. Hattoka, what just happened to him?” Typha kept demanding.

“I don’t know, damn it!” he snapped back. “Maybe the rumors were false.”

She shook her head with a huff. “What rumors? You just shot him!” She dismounted Clover. Her soaked dress slowed her down as she hurried to the bleeding water. Not knowing what else to do, she called Sarhahn’s name, hoping for some answer or sign that he was still here with them.

“His body should be harder than iron.” His rifle clicked as he prepared another bullet. “One shot shouldn’t have been enough to kill him.”

She turned to him once more, shocked that he still had his mind put to dispatching a kisri serving their own god. “So you’re gonna keep trying? Don’t you think Vatt’s gonna be angry enough with you already?”

“If I move quickly enough, Vatt won’t have a word to say about it. I could move to Seofen’s domain, convert to his religion for a few years. Figure things out. What about you?”

“What do you mean, ‘what about me?’ I haven’t done anything wrong. Except try to help _you_ ,” she spat.

“Well then. if that’s the story you’re sticking with,” his rifle gave a final click as he cocked it, “I can be long gone by the time they find you.”

Typha’s eyes went wide as he lifted his rifle to aim at her. How did she get here? Was this a proper fate for someone who only wished to protect her god and herself at the same time? “Mr. Hattoka,” she called softly. “Don’t.”

Angry lightning struck, so close that she could see which tree took the blow, so close that the crash of thunder startled all present, horses included. Clover kicked up her front legs with a loud whinny, while Hattoka gripped his horse’s neck as it hopped on its front hooves fearfully. Typha saw her chance to try to run as Hattoka gripped his horse.

But her legs froze in fear, and Hattoka kept his eyes on her as he regained his bearings. If only he had fallen off, or his horse bolted, or his gun misfired in the confusion. She closed her eyes and prayed for Vatt to help her, somehow.

His horse whinnied, and he shouted. Typha opened her eyes to find the animal in a logic-defying position, front half protruding out of the soaked earth, back half mysteriously sunken into nowhere. Hattoka was falling back, one hand still gripping his rifle as he flailed. Something jutted up from the ground behind him, and before she could warn him, or act at all, he crashed to the ground – and onto a metal spear.

Typha covered her mouth. She was going to be sick. Blood covered the spear tip standing just above his chest, shaft still impaling him. He choked up more blood, and all the while, his horse continued thrashing and crying out, trapped in bizarre partial existence.

“Mr. Hattoka,” she called, taking a few fearful steps closer, not knowing what answer she expected from him in this state.

His head lifted to look at the weapon stuck through his body. Typha didn’t know the right thing to do. Should she leave it and try to get help? Should she take it out? Could it even be taken out if it was in the same half-here-half-not-here state as his struggling horse?

He lifted an unsteady hand to the small portion of spear shaft extending past the front of his chest. But he appeared to find no strength, and his hand rested in place, grasping uselessly.

Behind his head, rainwater gathered, sloshed, took shape of its own accord. Typha had seen this before. Sarhahn’s head and shoulders took form above the ground. The only surprise this sight offered Typha was due to the very unmistakable sight of him being shot in the chest not two minutes ago.

The visible portion of his form solidified in shape and color. “You really thought it would be that easy,” he scolded from behind Hattoka’s head. His face was hidden behind Hattoka and his own soaked hair, and so Typha couldn’t make out his expression. Only one eye, zeroed in on Hattoka, was visible. Maybe a frown left a hard crease on his brow, maybe the rain fuzzed Typha’s view.

Hattoka turned his head to try to look at Sarhahn, body now heaving, still unable to do anything about the spear pinning him to the ground.

Sarhahn’s eye widened. “I like that face.” He tilted his head, and an ecstatic smile split his face like a crack in hot glass. “That face that says you thought you were off the hook.”

Hattoka grimaced. The hand around his gun squeezed, and he tried to lift it, but it barely made it off the ground before it fell ineffective beside him.

Sarhahn maneuvered his position, clumsily, but still faring better than the horse. He pulled an arm out of the surrounding water, braced it on the ground, pulled out the other.

“You must be a stupid I didn’t even fathom, attacking me like that right in front of your god,” he continued to berate Hattoka. His dagger took shape in his hand from the rainwater. He raised it high, and he made a decisive stab at Hattoka’s gun-grasping arm.

“Sarhahn, please!” Typha called at the sound of Hattoka’s pained cry. “This is cruel!”

He turned his head to her slowly, as if in a fog, and gave her the same displeased, drunken stare she had seen one or two men give their wives as they were coaxed from their merrymaking at the end of a festival. He turned that frown to Hattoka, then tilted his head again. “It’s cruel, she says,” he told Hattoka. “I guess I’m not killing you fast enough for her.”

His spear and dagger dissipated into water together. “That should help you bleed,” he told Hattoka.

Sarhahn looked at Hattoka’s horse curiously, as if noticing its state for the first time. He reached a hand toward it, over Hattoka, and as he did so, the horse pulled its back half up and into existence once again. It did bolt this time, stopping down the trail to pace in a circle without its handler.

Horse and weapon situations now tended to, Sarhahn pulled himself up from the rainwater on the ground with great labor. His tail was without a doubt the most difficult part, still dutifully fanned out, but weighed down to half mast by water soaking it through. Once fully released from whatever magic he used to dissolve himself, he pushed himself up, still appearing dizzy, not fully coordinated.

She wanted to stare at Hattoka as he bled out on the ground before her, but Sarhahn was more urgent. Rainwater blotted dark red across his clothing without washing it away. His motions swayed as if with a disconnect between intention and action. In the three short days she had known him, this was the furthest out of his right mind she had witnessed him. As if he wasn’t all there.

He swaggered to her, unarmed, but this was poor consolation after watching him murder Hattoka - even if he warned of this outcome on day one, even if it had ultimately saved her from harm by Hattoka’s hand. For all she knew, the bringer of her bloody end may have only changed from Hattoka to Sarhahn himself. He had pulled a blade on her out of nowhere before.

“Typha,” he said upon approach, not asking, but stating. To her or to himself, she didn’t know.

Her feet found the nerve to step her backward. Sarhahn frowned when they did.

“Just try to run,” he dared her. “I could go for another.”

“Sarhahn,” she called, hoping to tug him to his senses. “It’s me. Your helper. You don’t want to hurt me, do you?”

He straightened. Perhaps she had gotten through to him, even if just a part. “I’ll ask the questions here, girl.” He kept coming closer, past a normal speaking distance, into arm’s reach. He was too close when he stopped. Way too close. His eyes were pointed at her, but unfocused, perhaps even looking through her. Typha wanted to run, or beg him for mercy, but above all, she didn’t want to provoke him any further.

Lightning struck inside the clouds, lighting what dark sky was visible in that gap the path made in the forest ceiling. Typha thought that just for a moment, in that split second of illumination, she saw something long and enormous darting through the clouds behind Sarhahn.

Sarhahn spoke. “Have you been colluding with Hattoka against Vatt?”

“No,” she answered him. “I just wanted to learn what the capital knew about her.”

“Did you know he would try to kill me?”

“No!” She looked down at the hole in his clothing. The surrounding fabric was thoroughly bloodstained, but inside the hole, there was no sign of trauma as deadly as rifle fire. There was only a window to unbroken, walnut-wood flesh, miraculously healed from the shot.

“You called for him to stop,” he recalled. “Why?”

“I never wanted him to hurt you,” she answered honestly. “Why wouldn’t I stop him?”

He gave a “hmph” of derision, or skepticism, or annoyance. This must have been the last of what he needed to hear, because he joined once again with the falling water without any further questioning or information. Typha stared at the empty space in front of her where he vanished, then back at the horrifying sight of Hattoka on the ground.

She couldn’t immediately hop up onto Clover and head back to town for help, as much as she knew she should, as much as she felt this to be her responsibility. At this moment, she could only cover her mouth with her hand, bow her head, and weep for the brutal death she had just witnessed.


	20. The Visitor from the Capital

Outside of Anadi, there was a pond where fresh spring water gathered before continuing to join the river, untouched most of the year except for special ceremonies – baptisms, confirmations, weddings. Typha thought the trek from where Hattoka died to that pond was the longest journey she would ever take. That was until she had to lead Muir back to his corpse.

He, Tiya, and Neshob were all in a shock to hear what had happened. Typha could only explain by telling them that Hattoka had attacked Sarhahn, and Sarhahn killed him. Any further attempt to explain the event was swallowed up in sobs until Muir told her she didn't need to tell any more rigth away.

Yet Typha felt that she needed to tell him all of it. That Sarhahn had come to judge Hattoka from the start, and now a man was dead because of her. If she hadn't stolen his notes, if she hadn't told Sarhahn about the writing, he would still be here, and there could be another way for him to stand trial without having to die.

Muir rode alongside her quietly on the way back to the forest path. He had asked Neshob to join to assist with moving the body. Tiya wanted to be nearby to support Typha, even if she didn't know what to say.

Once they reached the destination, Typha and Tiya stayed back while the men approached the body. Typha was sure the sight was no less horrifying than when she left, Hattoka there with shock fixed on his face and a hole in his chest with no weapon around except his rifle.

They would have questions. Not now, maybe not tomorrow. But there was no way anyone could see the damage done to Hattoka, hear that Sarhahn had suddenly disappeared again, and not wonder what Typha had to do with all of it.

They returned Hattoka's body to the outskirts of town for cremation. Typha wanted to apologize to Tiya. She tried, when Neshob and Muir were preparing Hattoka's pyre.

"What are you sorry for?" Tiya asked her. "This was all Hattoka's fault in the first place. He's the one Sarhahn came to find, right?"

"He came here because I found out about Hattoka first. He appeared when I prayed to Vatt."

Tiya considered her explanation. "You shouldn't be sorry.” She thought about her next words, eyes low. “Maybe you did end up calling Sarhahn here, but I think either way, Hattoka would have been caught eventually."

After the wedding, someone would need to return Hattoka's ashes to the capital for a proper funeral. Muir simply said that they would work it out when the time came.

Tiya, Neshob, and Muir rode to the ceremonial pond together that next morning. No second priest accompanied to give the capital's blessing, no kisri joined to give Vatt's blessing. Typha was still working on rendering fat in her own parents' kitchen while the ceremony was going on. The newlyweds' families prepared the church for their arrival as a married couple in the meantime.

When the sun peaked in the sky, Muir returned to the town, his daughter and new son-in-law a few minutes behind him. The domestic boar was almost done roasting on the fire, and the families were still working so that there would be fried arrowhead root and rice and other foods ready to replenish as soon as they were needed.

The entire town was in attendance, all in high spirits, the same excessive cheer one wielded against unfortunate realities and disappointment. An unfamiliar face floated through the festivities. Typha first thought she must have been a relative of Neshob's, but she still found it strange that she had no recollection of the woman at all. Perhaps her memory was failing her in the melancholy clinging over the past day's events.

No one wanted to invite any more bad luck on the new marriage than there already might have been with an unmourned death still hanging over them. With the families’ refusal to mention the misfortune, Typha's mother became curious enough to ask what happened to Hattoka and the kisri.

Typha felt cold when she heard the question come up.

A cousin of Tiya's saved her from having to explain, simply saying, "Judgment was passed," and Typha's mother answered a quick "oh."

The people of Anadi had already begun to agree on their interpretation of the event. Sarhahn destroyed the evil lurking near Tiya's wedding – that was his true purpose for coming. His absence now was a sign that his work was done, and in that way, he had blessed the marriage after all.

Typha didn't try to decide whether or not she agreed with the mental acrobatics. She didn't want to think about whether the death she caused was a good thing or not.

The remarks were forgotten by the time she met Akapha. The name was familiar, so Typha must have met her before. She couldn't begin to place where she saw her, so she gave her own name in hopes that Akapha recognized her and could jog her memory.

"Typha," the woman repeated, as if in recognition. "I was hoping I'd find you. Do you know who I am?"

Typha shook her head. "Sorry, not really," she answered honestly. "Maybe they let me have more cider than I should have had."

Akapha smiled. "It's alright. Could you walk with me for a minute?"

She didn't see why not, so she followed as Akapha began to step away from the church. A long braid hung behind her, dark and embellished with strands white and shiny as spider’s silk.

"It's good to see everyone in such high spirits, what with everything that's happened."

The vague reminder was enough to pull open the wound in Typha's emotions. She fought the frown trying to work into her expression and hoped her voice wasn't noticeably shaky when she responded, "I'm glad everyone's happy too."

"Now what about you? I can't imagine it's easy to stick a smile on after what you've seen."

Typha swallowed. How much did this woman know? "Have I met you before somewhere?"

"Probably not, but you may have seen my name before. I'm the chief calculator of the calculatory in Vas Kedar. I work closely with the church's records department."

Typha stopped. "Why are you here?"

"To return the ashes of my late associate to his home church, of course." She gestured forward with her head. "I have something to show you."

Confusion and fear gnawed at Typha as she resumed following. No one had a chance to send word to the capital. The trip there was at least a day, maybe two. How did this stranger find out what happened – let alone make the trip to Anadi – so quickly?

"I spoke to Muir today about the purpose of my visit. He was pretty surprised to talk to me too, you know." Up ahead, a horse-drawn cart, just big enough for two people, was waiting on the main town road, looking ready to depart at any moment. "I came as soon as I could, and I talked to him at the first chance I had. But he said you're actually the person I should talk to for an official statement."

Akapha waited for Typha to respond, and so she answered a meek "I guess so." The visitor raised a brow but remained otherwise patient. "I mean," Typha continued, "I was there when... when Hattoka passed away."

"Perfect. I understand this is all very fresh, but I'm on a tight schedule, as I'm sure you can guess by how soon I got here."

They reached the cart. Akapha began to rummage through items stored under the seat.

"Um, speaking of that," Typha murmured, "how did you get here so fast? We never even got a chance to tell the capital Hattoka died."

On cue, Akapha retrieved a dark green feather, at least three feet long from the tip of the white quill to the blue eye spot. Typha's eyes went wide at the sight.

"I was visited by the kisri Sarhahn two nights ago. He gave me this if anyone needed proof of his word. This is as light and soft to the touch as any normal feather. But if you try to bend it, the spine won't collapse, no matter how hard you try." She held it forth, perhaps offering it for Typha to test herself, but she made no attempt to reach for it. Akapha continued. "Yesterday afternoon, he told me about Hattoka's death. I rode all through the night to get here."

It still didn't add up. Why did he find it so urgent that Akapha rush here to retrieve the ashes of a blasphemer?

"Naturally, the church will need a statement on the circumstances surrounding a death like this. Since you're the only witness we can get a hold of, we'll need to get it from you."

Typha answered a skeptical "Okay." Did Akapha mean now? "Do you need me to write it down or something?"

"There's no need. Get in."

"Huh?" Typha looked back and forth between Akapha and her carriage. "Where are we going?"

"To Vas Kedar."

"I can't just go." She took a step back. "I need to tell my parents. They'll probably want to talk before I go-"

"Typha." Her friendly attitude vanished. "I understand you're in a tough place with Sarhahn. If you don't want your situation to get worse, or anyone else's, you'll come quietly."

She stared a moment longer. "Please, I'll be quick, I'll just tell them where I'm going."

"Sarhahn will want to investigate them if he thinks they know too much about the situation. It'll be on you if anything happens to them."

Typha felt herself beginning to cry for what felt like the hundredth time since she first met Hattoka. She couldn't bear the thought of getting Sarhahn involved with this situation again. Especially not if her parents were the ones he was pointing weapons at this time.

She looked in the direction of the church. Wedding celebrations were audible, but not visible through the town's trees from where the two of them stood. It was just a statement. She would talk to whoever she needed to at the capital, be back home to apologize for leaving so suddenly, and leave this all behind her. Keeping this in mind to steel herself, she climbed into the cart.


	21. Plea Bargaining

Typha and Akapha rode in near silence. Akapha kept her horse at a steady pace. Typha wondered how exactly her escort intended to get her back home. It seemed like excessive work to have her (or someone else) bring Typha back, but she had no horse of her own, no experience traveling this far out of Anadi, and not enough courage to travel alone through the woods.

She tried to hint at asking how she was getting back. Akapha only answered that they “would decide that later” and left it at that.

“So, you called Sarhahn out on Hattoka,” Akapha said in the middle of a long stretch of quiet.

The fact, while not enough to shake Typha into tears, was still a raw spot on her mind. “I... I think so. I prayed after I read something he wrote, and then Sarhahn just... appeared.”

Akapha acknowledged her from the side of her eye, corners of her mouth lowered. “That kisri had no recorded appearances in over a hundred years. Not even that giant snake’s attack managed to draw him out.” She shook her head. “But somehow, you did.”

Typha hugged her arms to herself. She had no idea Sarhahn hadn’t been seen in so long. Had he been kept away from humans for a reason, a secret weapon to pull only when her god felt hopeless? Why was Typha the one to unleash him then, even after the entire town prayed and rallied for Vatt in the wake of the giant snake’s attack?

They came to a fork in the road. One path was narrower than the other, more an offshoot than an alternate direction of travel. Akapha stopped the horse.

“There’s a well around that bend.” She retrieved a bucket hanging off the frame of their cart and held it toward Typha. “Go fill this up. We have a few more hours before the next town, so we’ll eat here.”

Typha nodded and took the pail with her out of the cart. The walk was a welcome chance to get blood flowing to her stiff joints after a few hours of riding. When she looked back at Akapha, she was fishing through the supplies in the cart. She walked a dozen more paces, past the bend in the little path, and Akapha and the cart were gone in the woods.

Up ahead, a clearing welcomed travelers to use the metal well pump within as they passed through. The thought of having some cool water, Vatt’s gift to her followers, was a small, but welcome consolation for her tired heart and body.

She entered the clearing, looked to her right, and yelped as she dropped the bucket. On a seat carved from a wide tree stump sat Sarhahn, arms folded, staring at her with an unreadable expression.

“Typha,” he greeted, ignoring the few steps backward she took.

“Sarhahn.” Her heart pounded in her chest, her throat, at the corners of her vision. “You’re okay.”

“An unwelcome surprise?”

“No, no.”

He continued to stare at her for another moment. “Come here then. Give me the courtesy of speaking to my face.”

As Typha approached the creature she had unleashed upon her town and her domain, she realized she was shaking. She wanted to tell herself she had nothing to fear since he decided to let her go free last time. But the memory of him leaned over Hattoka’s face, taunting him as he died stamped down her rationality.

“I’ll be honest with you,” he said once she stopped in front of him. “I hoped you wouldn’t have to see me in that state.”

Was this an apology? She didn’t know what to make of it. “Did something make you that way?”

His eyes briefly lowered in thought. “When I’m contracted to Vatt, I’m aware of her will. Normally, it’s no effort to ignore. But when I draw on her power too quickly to repair my body, her will becomes entangled with mine.”

Typha glanced down at his chest. His jacket still had a hole in it where he had been shot, and a dark stain of washed blood around it. His skin beneath was unbroken, just as it was when she last saw him. “So was it you or Vatt I saw then?”

“It was both of us. I fully intended to kill Hattoka after he attacked me. As for Vatt…” He pushed back a tuft of curls trying to fall over his eye. “Blasphemy and the pursuit of forbidden knowledge are the two greatest sins in the eyes of the gods. She thought Hattoka was a threat, and she wanted him gone.”

“Then his writing really was that bad,” Typha concluded.

“What he wrote was moot. He made an attempt on my life. For that, he was judged, like a dog who bites his master.”

“Oh.”

“For you, the decision isn’t as clear.”

“What do you mean?”

“Typha, how stupid did you think I am? I watched you knowingly disobey me after I told you not to read Hattoka’s writing.”

Back at Tiya’s house. The window was open then. Typha didn’t even think about it.

“I knew you must have read more,” Sarhahn continued. “But I can’t prove you saw something any more than you can prove you didn’t.”

“I didn’t think you were stupid,” she tried meekly.

“But you tried to deceive me anyway.”

She had no defense for this.

“You’re too suspicious for me to let you go free. At the same time, you’ve been useful to me. What I’m about to tell you is so that you can make an informed decision about your next actions.”

Typha nodded.

“Thanks to you, I’ve ferreted out a sect in the capital. They’ve been assisting Hattoka in his search of a way to weaken Vatt. I’m giving you the option to work with them in falsifying data about her.”

She startled at this. “Falsifying?” Sarhahn kept looking at her without answering. “Like lying about her?”

“Precisely.”

“Why?”

“I don’t need you to know why to do it.”

“But isn’t that what you punish people for?”

“Give me your hand.”

Typha reflexively balled both hands into fists at her sides and froze. “Why?” she asked again.

He narrowed his eyes and didn’t answer her.

She took a deep breath. “Okay.” She took another breath to steady herself, and she held her hand in front of her.

Sarhahn turned her palm up. She flinched when he touched her.

“I punish blasphemy on the explicit request of the gods.” He studied her hand in his. “It seems inevitable that humans will warp information about the gods over time, whether or not they intend to.” He turned up to look at her face. “As a result, spreading false information about a god is not automatically an act of blasphemy. If you keep quiet about this, I’ll have no reason to bring any harm to you. If you tell anyone outside of your co-conspirators, you’ll be judged and punished as a heretic.”

He stood, and Typha knew already that this was no empty threat. She wanted to shrink away, or to run. Maybe if she just ran and never told a soul, he would let her go and leave his plot to the sinners in Vas Kedar.

But he was seizing her by the wrist instead, and he retrieved a knife from his hip. Typha gasped. He brought its tip up to her neck. The metal didn’t make contact, but she could feel it, clean and sharp and cool.

“Now choose. Will you do as I say, or should I get rid of you now?”

“Please, please,” she sputtered. “I’ll do whatever you say.”

“And you will not lie to me or keep secrets from me.”

“No.” Her legs were weak. Maybe she would just collapse now and fall on his knife. Then all of this would be over. “I’m sorry I lied to you.”

He pressed the blade to her neck. “So you confess to lying to me.”

Typha’s eyes were filled with heat, and her chest packed with ice. This was the end for her, it had to be. “I’m sorry! I won’t do it again!”

“I’ll make sure of that.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t open them when he pulled the blade from her neck. If she had, she would have seen its path to the fiirst knuckle of her index finger.


	22. Relocation

"It's probably smaller than you're used to, but it'll do until we figure out something for a longer term," Akapha said.

Typha gave another look around the dorm room. Her thoughts flowed poorly, as if her mind was filled with cotton clogging the channels. It was like that ever since they met with Sarhahn in the woods. She took in the sight of the small cot, the modest wardrobe, the lantern missing a candle. But even as she merely took stock of the room, her thoughts seemed to run slower.

"I'll leave you to get a feel for the place. I'll try to get you some clothes while I'm gone too."

Typha looked at her. Her hand hurt. She held it to her chest with the other, and she squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, Akapha was blurry; when she blinked, the woman looked apologetic. Typha only nodded.

"You can take a walk around. Might occupy your mind for a bit."

"Okay."

Akapha tried to look sympathetic for a moment, then left. Typha sat on the bed, still hoding her hand to her chest. The cotton in her brain formed into images, only to return to formless nothing slowing her thought.

When it took shape, Typha saw home: she saw her family, greeting her with both love and that particular flavor of anger seasoned with the fear of loss, she saw herself and Tiya and Chali making that fishing trip, she saw the familiar shapes and shades of darkness in her room before she closed her eyes for the night.

She hated it. Sarhahn had made it clear he had no intention of letting her return home anytime soon. Yet all her mind could conjure as she stared at the floor was the hopeless image of her returning home, going back to normal life, and everything being as it always was.

What were her parents thinking right now? Would they come looking for her, all the way out here, with nothing to go on but her name and the thought that she had been taken to speak with the church?

What would happen to them if they did miraculously find her?

Typha didn't notice the passage of time until Akapha returned. She bid Typha to come to the next building with her.

The two descended the wooden stairs and crossed the foyer of the dorms. The sun still lit the short walk to the Calculatory. If not for the capital church she saw in passing late that morning, the Calculatory would have been the biggest building she had seen. Stone housed the activities of each place, and she was soon to see the inside of this one.

Akapha led her in. Windows lit the interior and wall torches stood ready for the darkness of late hours. There wasn't a single creaky plank in the floor. It was jarringly perfect in comparison to the cramped little crooked-floored records room in the church at home. It taunted her with how out of place she was.

"I doubt they had a calculatory at your hometown," Akapha said.

"We didn't."

"This is where we do all the calculations on church data. We work for businesses too – usually they send their people here to learn the math they need, but sometimes they'll have us do all the work."

They went up to a hall full of doors, and Akapha opened one at the far end. Three girls sat at a round table waiting, and an older woman stood.

"Everyone, this is Typha." Akapha introduced. "She's a new student at the Calculatory. Mrs. Okhina will be your resident advisor. Ammita, Ishki and Caia are in the dorms near yours. They'll be around if you need and help getting settled in here."

Okhina gave an obligatory "It's nice to meet you," while one of the girls greeted good afternoon. The other two continued to stare quietly at Typha.

The one who greeted her looked different from anyone she had ever met. The base color of her skin was lighter than most, the color of straw in the low sun. Heavy, dark freckles spotted her nose and cheeks, and her hair coiled tight in its ponytail.

"Ammita has been here five years," Akapha continued. "I'd like for her to help you catch up with class material."

Ammita nodded at Akapha. The younger of the other two might have rolled her eyes. Typha wasn't sure.

Akapha dismissed the three girls, leaving Typha in the room with the two adults. With the door shut and the others headed off, Akapha sat at a table and took a deep, exasperated breath. Typha remained standing.

"So, judging by how fast you ran off the get Typha, I'm guessing she's not an ordinary student."

"The kisri appeared to me again." She pinched her temples with one hand. "He's not sending us to our graves. But in exchange for sparing us judgment, he's seizing our group. We do what he says, we stay quiet about it, and he'll leave us alone for the most part."

Okhina looked at Typha again. "And Miss Typha is...?"

"She met Hattoka in Anadi. She's in the same boat as us, so she'll need to learn enough math to do the work. As far as anyone here is concerned, she's just another student."

"Where's Hattoka now?"

"In an urn somewhere in the church."

Her eyes widened.

"According to Typha's statement, he tried to kill Sarhahn."

Typha wanted to leave if they were only going to talk about her as if she wasn't there. Not that she wanted to be the one to explain to this strange woman that her friend or co-worker or co-conspirator was gone because of her.

The two adults exchanged more information before dismissing Typha. She took in more of the building on her way out. There seemed to be no shortage of halls, all wide and sunlit and well-fitted in gray wood.

One of the halls opened up to a wider area, with a raised pocket with chairs and tables sectioned off by a carved wooden partition. Ammita sat at one of the tables here. There was a dusty chalkboard on one of its walls and a clear view of the city outside.

Ammita greeted Typha as she approached the community area, urging her to come sit with her. She made small talk for the most part: where Typha was from, what she was doing before moving up to Vas Kedar.

Typha couldn't help wondering at Ammita's foreign appearance now that she was even closer to the other girl. She had heard descriptions of people like her. She had even read about their ancestors in one of Hattoka's journals, now that she thought about it. But it never occurred to her that they lived in Anadi.

"Um," she murmured into a gap in the conversation. "Are you... a Godless person?"

"What's wrong with you?" All cordiality left Ammita's presence, and she frowned at Typha.

Typha startled. "Nothing," came her sheepish answer. "Was that a bad thing to say?"

"Don't call me that. Don't call anyone that."

"Sorry." She looked down at her own hands in her lap. "I didn't know." She had never heard anyone refer to them by any other name.

Ammita glowered at her a moment more before letting it go with a quick, shallow sigh. "Well now you do. We're Zicalan. Call us that." She regarded Typha a moment longer. "Why, is that gonna be a problem?"

"No, no, I just... I've never met a Zicalan before. I just heard people talk about how you guys all left your home domain."

"Vatt's domain _is_ my home domain. That stuff was a long time ago; it has nothing to do with me."

"I know, I didn't mean it like that."

"Awkward," a third voice chimed.

Typha and Ammita turned to see Ishki and Caia with their arms perched on the rail sectioning off the common area. "Man, why do you get saddled with the girls who don't know anything?" the younger girl, Ishki teased. "I think Miss Akapha is picking on you."

"Don’t start," Ammita chided. "She's not from here, so she didn't know."

"Really?" Ishki pushed. "So she's making you teach another country girl how to count past 20?"

"Nineteen," Caia chimed, lifting her right hand to wiggle her fingers.

"Why are you so mean?" Typha cut in. "I haven't even done anything to you." She had been on the receiving end of Chali's teasing and attempts to scare her plenty of times as a kid, but these two girls seemed nastier than Chali, and for no reason Typha understood.

"It's just a joke," Ishki dismissed. "You were the one asking Ammita uncomfortable questions."

Typha wanted to go back to her new room, away from the needless confrontation from the girl who was introduced to her not fifteen minutes ago as one who would help her around.

"Well right now the only one making people uncomfortable is you," Ammita told her. "So go away if you're just gonna be rude."

"Whatever you say. Have fun with the new farm girl." Ishki pushed off the rail to continue down the hall.

"And good luck," Caia snarked as she joined her.

Typha stared down at her lap again. She had already realized earlier she was far out of place here to begin with. Having someone else point it out was extra salt in the wound.

"Don't let them get to you." Ammita leaned closer to get Typha's attention. "Ishki is just... like that."

"She's right," Typha answered. "I don't even know what I'm supposed to learn here."

"Hey, most people don't. It'll make sense soon enough. They accepted you to study here, didn't they?"

"They" did, but "they" were apparently under heavy pressure from Sarhahn to bring Typha here. She sighed. What did it even matter? She didn't want to be here in the first place. She wanted to go home and hug her parents.

"Hey, you're not really upset about her, are you?"

"I just miss home, I guess."

"I see."

Typha looked up at one of the chalkboards. Old writing ghosted through the layer of chalk dust, just barely visible. She stared at it without discerning any meaning.

"Hey, if you want, I can show you something interesting I read," Ammita offered, noticing Typha's staring at the board.

"Thanks. I think I'll go back to my room for now."

Ammita offered a sympathetic smile and let her go.

Typha remembered to short walk back to the dorms and up to her room. The silence in here gave her mind room to drift back to home again. Exhaustion weighed her down after the walk - not in her legs, or in her feet, but all over.

She wasn't sleepy. She didn't want to be awake and think. She took a deep breath against the lead filling both her mind and body, laid in the small bed, and stared at the ceiling.

She wanted to go home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading and sticking with me to the end! The sequel to this story is in progress, hopefully to be ready for posting in January of 2019.


End file.
